Jaded Ink

Hackers

2012-01-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

After a year long hiatus, and despite a backlog of entries to catch up on, I decided to open up the new year with a post on hackers. Those vial scum that infect our devices for fun and/or profit.

One in particular, the Windows Security 2012 viruses, and its predecessors (2010 and 2011 versions) have given me quite the headache. Now, I'm tech and internet savvy enough that I don't get hit by most viruses (this is the only one I've had an issue with). I have a good antivirus software that I keep up to date and running at all times. I surf sites that I'm familiar with and "know" to be safe. I don't click links offering me huge prizes as I'm the 1 billionth visitor. I admit to one flaw (that I will be fixing soon), and that is a tendency to run with my firewall off due to making some gaming, and more particularly subversioning commits of programs run a great deal smoother.

When I first got this virus in early 2010, I was still relatively noobish enough that I didn't want want to go digging around in my registry on my own. So I shelled out a couple hundred bucks to let techboys dive in and deal with it. At this time, the virus was pretty nasty already, writing itself into your system restore checkpoints, and shutting down all programs and internet access except to its own site.

The idea behind this virus is simple enough: put together a rogue program that looks believably to be a legitimate Windows issue, then charge unwary users to "register" it, and at the same time steal credit card information. I will give them props for at least trying to get something out of the deal. The only thing worse than a hacker-for-profit is a hacker-for-shits-and-giggles.

I went the next couple few years with no trouble from this nasty little shit. However, the creators seem to be out for blood as I've been hit with it 3 times in just the last couple of months now. I think I've finally nailed down the site I was getting it from (actually a long-time favorite of mine. I do not think its the creators of the site installed the worm, but that the creators were simply able to worm it into their system).

And the little shits have been doing their homework. The first time I got it, I ran into a couple small snags uninstalling it myself, but was able to dig into the registry and get rid of it. The second time, however, they had the virus shutting down access to the registry editor, the system restore feature (the "nice" one that rolls back your system a few days and saves all your files, regardless of when they were created rather than wiping your hard drive to factory oblivion), and the command prompt.

This latest incarnation, however, shows further ingenuity. They killed system admin rights, disabled the task manager, removed visibility to external drives, hid the system protection feature so system restore couldn't be turned on at all, and after entering in a fake registration code from one of the many removal guides available shut down my network drivers regardless of what level of Safe Mode I booted up in.

After three hours of rage and tears, I was finally able to make some headway against this beast. I really, really, really do not want to wipe my computer. It wouldn't be the end of the world, with my files backed up. The only files I'd lose I care at all about are my Skyrim saves. My bigger problem is that I would then have to reinstall a lot of programs. Besides taking up time, some (like my Windows Office) I'm out of installs on. Others I have difficulty locating the disks for, and all in all, would take me a good couple of days to get everything back up and running, patched and ready to roll.

So this boils down to a great deal of rage on my part. People like this are scum, and should focus on getting out of their parents' basements and getting real jobs.While I'm sure they rake in a fair amount of money, its at the cost of other people in the worst way. Besides the money and identity theft, which can seriously fuck a person over anyways, it also kills what, to many people, is the most important device in their lives. Family pictures and videos lost, access to internet to manage the household, hours of games, important documents, etc. All possibly lost. Or, if it can all be saved, it is at the cost of several hours of work. Hours that often need to be put to use elsewhere, working, sleeping, cleaning, relaxing from a long day, etc.

How many of us really have the time for this kind of shit? All so some asshole can get rich off of the portion of the populace that doesn't know how to recognize this kind of scumbaggery. While the tech savvy like myself just hang our heads in shame for getting a virus and can dig in and beat it, there's a large number of people with no clue how to recognize this kind of thing.

Its easy to brush it off as "their own damn fault" for not learning the proper ways to protect themselves, but who teaches them? Most computers are up and running out of the box in minutes, with no alerts to this kind of thing. Ask a tech at a store, and they'll simply offer a good anti-virus (which Windows Security can get past).

I will give the creators of the Windows Security virus that they're smart. Every new iteration of the virus ruthlessly cuts around the various ways to counteract it and kill it. And thanks to them, I've learned how to rip the very heart out of my computer, beat into submission, and and shove it back in.

But it's cost me so much in terms of time. And ironclad security (if there is such a thing) quickly starts to interfere with legitimate applications and usages.

And with the rise in the use of smartphones and similar devices, those are quickly becoming vulnerable to hacking as well.

It's despicable, its disgusting, and it's costing victims time, money, and possibly leading to serious, life-changing problems.

And sadly, there's no way to stop it. As long as there's a profit to be made, and the internet and constant connectivity is such an increasingly critical part of our lives, we will never be free from this kind of threat. People will do terrible things to each other for fun and profit, just as we've done for millennia.

The common response to rants like this from many people is "Lol, then buy a Mac". But as more and more people buy Macs, they'll start getting hacked just as much as their Windows counterparts. Yes, Windows has problems that are undeniable. But Macs are not superior or immune. To be perfectly honest, the main reason Macs aren't hacked as often is that most of their users are artists, hipsters, and college students. Few of whom have anything worth stealing. PCs are targeted because the virus will hit the widest base, and are also far more likely to hit more novice users who will fall victim to the scams. As one person put it, if Fort Knox and the cookie jar had the same level of security, which would you be more likely to steal from?

So there it stands. Hackers are complete scum in my view. Even so-called "political hackers" like Anonymous, who claim to be fighting for truth, justice and the American way when they're just bullying anyone who disagrees with them.

But the vast bulk of my hatred lies with the creators of the Windows Security virus. As I pass 4 hours of working on getting rid of your worm, for not the first time, I want to find you. The things I want to do to you make Guantanamo Bay look like a five star day spa.

I will find you. And when I do, I'm going Liam Neeson on your ass.

Dead Like Me: Life After Death

2011-01-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

Dead Like Me: Life After Deathwas the straight to DVD movie that followed the critically acclaimed series, Dead Like Me, and attempted to give it some closure that it didn't get in its second (and final) season.

The movie starts with the restaurant where George, Daisy, Mason and Roxie all gathered together to get the day's reaping assignments from their boss, Rube, burning to the ground. Our quartet of protagonists are shocked to find their former boss no where in sight, and discover that he has finally moved on and that they have a new boss.

The movie manages to capture a lot of the charm of the series. However, a lot of issues just played out as cheap and contrived, in an attempt to bring closure in the space of a movie. George's reap causes her to become entwined with her younger sister's life. It felt forced and contrived, and served little purpose. The lack of closure for Reggie and Joy after George died (and, unbeknown to them, became a reaper) was part of what made the series so poignant.

The loss of Mandy Patinkin (who played the original boss of the reapers) was a big hit to the charm of the show, and it lost some of the structured feeling, as each of the reapers gave in to the excess provided by their new boss. While their characters didn't necessarily act out of character, they felt largely forced. The loss of his guidance forced the characters to make their own way, which was certainly an interesting plot, and better than many they could have done, but it jsut didn't feel bad.

Dealing with a reaper gone bad (their new boss) felt too much like one of the episodes in season 2. The emotional core of George and her sister again felt forced, with Reggie being involved in a secret romance and trying to find acceptance among her peers. This felt incredibly cheesy for the story.

All in all, it wasn't a bad ending for the series, and it wrapped up lose ends perfectly well, but it still managed to fall far short of the original series and leaves the viewer feeling disappointed.

The Futility of the Console Wars

2011-01-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

I kind of touched on this a few days ago, but I wanted to touch on it in more depth. It comes as no surprise that Nintendo, XBox and PlayStation are in a 3 way war with each other. But what is really the point?

Gamers tend to polarize in favor of their favorite platform. Their preferred is the only "real" console, and too be a "real" gamer you have to have one.

But what are these companies really accomplishing? Increasing fractional points of their marketshare? What does that even mean anymore? How many households really don't have more than one? True, a few truly can't afford it. Some just don't care. But after all these years, people that want them pretty much have them. Going off the prices of the brand new consoles (let alone what their prices have fallen to over the last couple of years) the total cost of all 3 would have been $1400. A large chunk of change to be sure, if paid all at once. But, when you break it down over the long term, the XBox 360 was the first of the new gen to come out, and it came out in November 2005 (not a bad strategy. Come out a year earlier than the PS3 or Wii and get a head start). That was 62 months ago, though. If you set aside just $23/month, you'd have all three right now. And that's going off of new prices, let alone the massive drops we've seen in the last couple years.

So, if you really wanted all three, you could easily have reached that mark by now.

So really it comes down to what you prefer in your console. More and more, the consoles are trying to overlap each other. The Wii started off catering to the family market, trying to appeal to a broad base, and offering a family friendly system that parents and grandparents would feel comfortable getting their kids. With their innovative motion control system that got the kids up off the couch, and being the first console to develop software that went beyond simple gaming, the Wii has a strong base. Mario and Zelda will never go out of style, and their party games are changing how families spend time together.

XBox has long been the console appealing to the 18-34 male demographic. Halo and other FPS titles are what the XBox was built on, and their offering of Achievements and online multiplayer struck true with the "hardcore".

PlayStation found a niche in the middle. A large number of strong exclusive releases keeps it popular among hte hardcore. Games like LittleBigPlanet and ModNation provide options for families. Almost most importantly, PlayStation's creator, Sony, is able to add alot of functionality that the others couldn't. It comes with a Blu-Ray player (which of course was developed by Sony), and through firmware updates is able to keep on the cutting edge without the need for a lot of excess hardware. PS3 already supports 3D technology, and all signs point to it not going out of date for a long, long time.

But now, it seems that they are all trying to trample on each other. The Wii is trying to pick up more ports of the "hardcore" games. XBox and PS3 both are embracing the action-controllers with their Kinect and Move respectively. XBox is making a serious push to put out exclusive family-friendly games like Kinectimals. And the PS3.... well, the PS3 has Kevin Butler. And that just plain makes them epic.

But I wonder what would happen if instead of trying to simply grab more customers, these consoles (in particular the Wii), especially when it comes to their graphics device) moved more towards simply improving their experience. Focusing on what they do best, and perfecting it, and giving their fanboys a taste of what each console individually has the potential to become.

Right now, the only real victims are the players. Berated by their friends for buying the "wrong" console. Feeling obliged to defend their choice of console to other gamers they come across, and the idea that whichever console you happen to own, you must clearly fly their fanboy flag.

Internet Didn't Just Kill the Video Star

2011-01-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, I remember pouring over players' guides for my games. Finding all the secret areas, helping find the smoothest route through a level, and completing all the optional side-quests. I had an entire shelf filled with them.

But it dawned on me the other day that the last player's guide I actually bought was a couple years ago. Nowadays, I don't even consider picking one up for my games (except Pokemon, but that's because it is more encylopedic and allows for easy browsing through the full Pokedex).

With internet sites teeming with guides written and published by other gamers, forums with which to ask (or find an answer to something someone else asked) questions about how to conquer a certain aspect of any given game, and even video walkthroughs available on YouTube, there is no point to shelling out cash for a players' guide. A quick Google search can even bring up the map for Super Nintendo's Jurassic park. I used to spend hours carefully pacing and measuring where I was, and drawing it in colored pencil on graph paper.

I can't remember the last time I actually jotted down notes during a game (not counting WoW, where notes are related to gear and AH prices rather than notes about the story itself). Anymore, I simply keep my laptop next to me when I'm playing, and within 30 seconds I can find the answer I need.

In some ways, its almost sad. Few players guides are worth the price. I think the only guide I still have and use that I think is worth it is the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess leather-bound special edition guide. Guide's aren't entirely without their value, however. It provides everything you need in a simple package (no wading through forum posts trying to find something), and the writing for the walkthroughs tend to be seasoned with anecdotes and humor.

But those alone aren't enough. Bradygames and Prima need to wake up. I'm sure they've noticed the declining sales, but they aren't doing anything about it. Guides cost about the same, and still don't come with any kind of perk to encourage using a paper guide versus a searchable text guide on the internet.

Even I can't think of much that would entice me to buy guides that are going to eat up shelf space. Any token "collectible" items they offer with it are unlikely to be cool enough to pique my interest. In-game rewards are rarely necessary to fully enjoy the game. Maybe add some concept art, some back story, and maybe an interview or two?

Who knows. As the players' guide sections of game stores dwindles, I know there will come a day when my kids will wonder I had to go buy books to have a game walkthrough. Just brings back a little nostalgia for the days when I spent the time I wasn't gaming pouring over these guides, learning every game I had inside, out, and sideways in ways that in a world where I don't have to dive too deep to find what I'm looking for, and finding extra tidbits along the way are rare.

The Biggest Loser: The Ultimate Workout

2011-01-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

The Biggest Loser: The Ultimate Workout is the latest in a line of Biggest Loser workout games, and the first compatible with the Kinect. While I have not played other TBL games, I have played other fitness games, mainly on the Wii.

The Ultimate Workout is probably the best I've seen. First, if you're a fan of the show, you'll enjoy getting to work with your choice of Bob, Jillian, or both. If TBL isn't your thing, then you still get an excellent comprehensive workout. You are given a wide range of tools to help you meet your goal that I don't see so comprehensively offered in others.

The first thing offered by TUW is a body analyzer. This picks up your measurements without the need to go find a tape measure. These are not entirely accurate, but if it is off by enough to matter, it seems to go far enough that it is easily noticeable (it read my neck as 216" around. I'm pretty sure that my neck isn't 18 feet around). It has a standard array of offering recipes, calorie trackers, and a "Lifestyle Tasks" that give you simple tasks to help build healthy habits.

The game offers 10 different workout programs, with focuses ranging from large amounts of weightloss to muscle toning, to intensive training. The game uses a fitness test to help you determine your level of fitness, which helps to ensure that you don't push yourself too far, or go too easy. While other games offer this, I felt TUW had a much better test, and I was very happy with the level of my workouts. It also provides a variety of workouts from basic aerobic and muscle exercises to yoga to boxing training, keeping your workouts varied and more interesting.

Utilizing the power of the Kinect to provide a controllerless experience, this game takes away a lot the frustration of at home workouts. When using workout videos, it can be hard to do a new exercise and be sure that you're doing it correctly, and with the Wii, the necessity of holding the Wiimote and Nunchuck makes adding things like dumbells and medicine balls nearly impossible. With the Kinect, TUW is able to tell you if you're not doing an exercise correctly, urging you to correct your shape, kick higher, lunge farther, etc.

By far, this is the best workout game I've played, but it is far from perfect. There are a number of features that are lacking, or outright missing. First, despite clearly being compatible with XBox Live, there is no way to email yourself the recipes listed in game. You have to break out the pad and pen and try to copy it down from the screen.

Next, there is no way to change your workout to account for injuries. During my first week, I bruised my knee (unrelated to the game), but there was no way to adjust my workout to avoid aggravating the injury. There were plenty of exercises that didn't bother me much, but no way to reset my daily workout.

Third, there is no way to schedule specific days off outside of trying to set your initial schedule (when you start a workout program) to line up with what you need. There is no way to account for things like going out of town for a day or two, or other one-time adjustments easily. This would be a great addition to the game, to allow that week's workouts to be set to catch up with what you will you be missing.

Finally, the limitations of the Kinect can skew your scores for individual exercises, and cause the trainers to get pissy with you. It can be incredibly frustrating to be executing the exercise correctly, and hear that you're quitting, or have that one show up as your worst exercise (instead of seeing your real worst that you need to focus on improving).

Now, I know many gamers rail against the idea of workout games. They feel that exercise and games are antithetical. However, this view severely constricts what our consoles are capable of doing for us. I've found games make the best form of exercise. Going to the gym is a headache, exercise videos can end up doing more harm than good, and the structure and motivation provided in these games can help to keep you focused.

If you're interested in working out, whether to improve your fitness or to lose weight, this is a good buy that will not end up on the back shelf when you reach your initial goals.

Achievements and Gaming

2011-01-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Achievements have been around for a while. But until this latest console generation, it has been largely up to the individual games as to whether or not to include them, or what their depth and breadth would be. But, with PS3, XBox 360 and PC all offering them, it adds a new dimension to the games we play.

Achievements encourage us to fully experience the game, perhaps pushing us to sample aspects of the game they might otherwise bypass. And they do so in a way that is non-intrusive. Participating is not forced on the player (unless the player is completionist and OCDs over getting all the achievements for a given game), allowing us to avoid things that we just don't want to mess with.

World of Warcraft is definitely the most prolific with achievements. With well over 1000 achievements, and pertaining to all aspects of the game, any player can feel accomplished by how many achievements they can get. Raids and dungeon groups are encouraged to complete fights in more difficult ways, and players are encouraged to actively pursue PvP activities. But no one loses out on any kind of substantial rewards if they skip, merely cosmetic ones.

This is the best kind of achievement system. You don't want a game to force you to do a bunch of stuff you don't want to in order to gain important rewards. Achievements should reflect your dedication and skill, not be a requirement to complete the game.

They also increase replay value as you have more incentive outside of curiosity to see all the endings, or find all the secret items. I never got all the flags or killed all the Templars in Assassin's Creed because there weren't trophies associated with them. There was no point for me. While there is that sense of personal satisfaction, that's all. You don't get anything tangible that you can quickly compare with friends.

It has expanded the interest in individual games, and their replay value, but have remained just weak enough of a pull that games can't used them as a crutch. They can't expect a bad game to float along just because gamers will be trying to get the achievements.

The Wii needs to get on the bandwagon. It's one of the downsides of playing games on the Wii. The lack of achievement support just makes a game feel less fun. Not all games offer their own achievements, and those lacking them leave one feeling little incentive to explore the game to its full capacity. It may be a trend caused by the increasing need in our society for something tangible, rather than enjoying intangible satisfactions, but its the reality we live in.

As we progress through the future, achievements won't be going away. They are too powerful of a tool for game developers to help focus the player on varying aspects of the game for developers to give them up, and players enjoy getting them enough that it will continue to hold our interests.

Cross-Platform Gaming

2011-01-17T00:16:00.000-07:00

Console wars have existed since consoles were introduced in the 1980s. Talk to any gamer, and they will quickly be able to tell you why their favorite platform is the best. Whether PS3 or XBox, PC or Wii, we all have our favor
Each platform, though, does seem to have its niche. The Wii is great for family games, the PC great for RPGs and RTS (where great amounts of hotkeys and the fine control of the mouse can improve the experience), the XBox seems to be best at more "grown-up" games, and the PS3 lives in a great middle ground.

But, the divisive lines get a little silly. Most titles are available cross-platform. Assassin's Creed II is going to be just as good, regardless of what you play on.

I think the time has come for the various platforms to stop fighting with each other, and embrace each other, at least to an extent.

Most cross-platform games have primarily the same kind of achievements and trophies, and the same kind of multiplayer. In the upcoming Portal 2, gamers will be able to connect via Steam to play multiplayer across both PS3s and PCs. I think that this is a huge step in the right direction.

One of the hardest things about playing multiplayer is that your friends cannot always play with you. If I have AC Brotherhood for PS3 and my friend has XBox, we're not going to be able together. The platforms need to come together and embrace each other. We need to support cross-platform multiplayer, cross-platform friend lists and chat, and cross-platform comparison of achievements.

By doing this, we can start to break down the walls of console partisanship, and start to create a more open arena, where players can choose based solely on their own personal preference, rather than what they feel will keep them better connected with their friends.

Come on guys, lets come together.

Wizard of Oz

2011-01-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was watching Wizard of Oz with the kids. I've seen before, of course, but not in years. I was actually very impressed with the quality of the film, and the special effects, particularly given that it was made 72 years ago.

The story, of course, is timeless. The novel came out 1900, and even 111 years later, its still a story filled with heart and magic, and entirely entertaining. The journey of Dorothy as she learns how important friendship and family is, and learns the importance of intelligence, courage and love.

Aside from being visually beautiful, the actors are filled their parts perfectly. Judy Garland's Dorothy creates a charming heroine, but one with faults that she must overcome. Almost surprising for the time period, Dorothy does not come across as a damsel-in-distress, and aside from being a little naive, has the spunk to be a formidable foe for the Wicked Witch. She travels through the land of Oz, eager to get to her destination and find her way home, and remains resolute in the face of danger, even when the Wicked Witch offers her safety in return for the ruby slippers.

The Scarecrow creates a charming, clutzy, and loyal character to help guide Dorothy through the hazards of Oz. Initially, the studios wanted to hint at a future romance between Dorothy and the farmhand counterpart to Scarecrow. While this was cut from the film, you still can see the chemistry between them, and see the affection they have for each other.

The Tin-Man is caring and compassionate, and provides the moral compass for the group, helping them remember to be kind to others, and take the moral high ground. The Cowardly Lion provides excellent comic relief, and his character has become widely recognizable. His fear at the silliest things helps keep things lighthearted when the movie takes darker turns.

The Wicked Witch was masterfully portrayed by Margaret Hamiltion, and her character has become iconic. She provides the perfect amount of pure evil, and creates a formidable foe for Dorothy and her friends. She is thoroughly well-developed, and has a fullness to her character that many other similar movies lack in their villains.

A story of friends, love, and perseverance makes this movie into a timeless classic that will still be popular for years to come. An instant classic, and one of the best movies out there.

Monty Python

2011-01-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

Monty Python is a collection of great comedians, creating great comedy.The British troupe had a gift for bringing together surreal and absurd comedy, and delivering it with straight faces. Their show, Monty Python's Flying Circus has created some of the most memorable sketches around, like The Lumberjack Song, Dead Parrot, and Spam.

The influence they had over comedy is incredibly clear as you can see hints of its influence in early SNL, and more. The movies that followed the end of the series, in particular The Holy Grail, have become cult classics, and elements from these movies have become so ingrained into our pop culture that we hardly even notice them anymore. "Just Look on the Bright Side of Life", coconuts has horse hooves, airspeed velocities of laden swallows, and more have become staples of our culture, as much as "lol", "tweet", and other such idioms.

Monty Python is why the Python programming language is called Python, why our junk-email is called spam, and why Lemony Snicket has a character named Uncle Monty.

Their humor may seem fairly mild today (for the most part), but in the late 60s through early 70s, they were defining the cutting edge, and pushing the boundaries of what was considered appropriate. Terry Gilliam's "stream of consciousness" styled animations are unique, even today. They create an abstract storyline that draws you in, and in many ways, cleanses the pattern of your mind. There is very little way to make sense of them, and if you just roll with it, it seems to clear your mind enough that you transition into the next sketch with a fresh outlook.

If you aren't familiar with Monty Python, or have only seen their movies, go hit Netflix and go through The Flying Circus. It's raunchy, it's hilarious, and you won't regret it.

Futurama

2011-01-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Futurama is one of my favorite shows, and over the break (and a little before) I worked my way back through the series (thank you Netflix). I was almost surprised to see that the original 4 seasons have weathered the last ten years well.

The show was timeless. The jokes they made weren't so caught up in cultural relevance that they've lost their kick, and the various moral-of-the-story moments were universal enough that it didn't feel stale. the show is amusing, and lampoons social issues without beating you over the head with it.

The show is also visually impressive with its unique (for its time) blend of hand-drawn and CGI elements. It gave a look that was new and innovative for its time, and one that has never really been copied. You could look at a frame from Futurama, and you'd likely recognize it from the show immediately.

The show kept itself more or less on track, but since a strong timeline wasn't really necessary (it uses the sitcom standard that things more or less return to normal at the end of an episode), they could change it up a bit. We see varying version of Fry's freezing, a couple possibilities about the life of his dog, and even the all-important career chips get largely ignored throughout the season.

This change to the "canon" is done without a lot of excessive justification. They just do it, and instead of weighing it down, just run too fast over the top of it for it to be jolting to the viewer. This jostling of the plot isn't meant to insult the viewer's intelligence, or try to break up the already fairly sturdy plot. The writers would just get a new idea of what happened in certain events and let it roll. Screw the paradoxes, and just go with it.

The humorous show wasn't without its tear-jerkers though. The episode (Luck of the Fryish) of flashbacks to the time Fry spent with his brother is poignant, but without becoming maudlin. The final episode of season 5, The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings, the series culminates with Fry finally being able to win Leela over enough that she at least considers and respects his feelings, and is a very tender ending to the series proper. And of course, the ending to Jurassic Park, as we watch Fry's faithful dog from the 20th century sit forlornly, waiting for his time-lost master to return has been said to be one of the saddest things on television.

The movies that followed, and wrapped up, the series were incredibly well done. In The Simpsons Movie as well, Matt Groening shows a knack for taking television shows to the big screen. Rather than trying to trump them up to Hollywood proportions, he makes them feel much more like extended episodes. All four of the movies were hugely entertaining, keeping both the moral lessons, and the jaunty humor rolling, ending with Fry and Leela finally confessing their love, and sharing their first kiss as the Planet Express ship flies straight into a wormhole.

It was a fitting end to the series, but when Comedy Central decided to bring it back, it was welcomed with open arms.While Fry and Leela's new romance altered the dynamic of the cast slightly, the show continued on, and managed to do so without having to repeat plotlines, and managed to come off as fresh as ever. Some fans have been disappointed, but that's only to be expected, I guess.

I'm not sure when the rest of season 6 will finish airing, likely next summer. But my DVR is waiting for it.

David Eddings: The Work of a Storytelling Master

2011-01-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

David Eddings has long been my favorite author. His talent for epic fantasy is amazing. His characters are well-developed and have a depth to them far beyond that of many other books. While their roles may be stereotypical (the young hero, the might sorcerer, etc etc), he gives to each of them a unique flavor.

While you will find similar characters in all of his books, they have enough individual idiosyncracies that they never feel dull, or simply copies of other characters.

His first jaunt into the world of fantasy (with only one novel published before that) was good enough to end up with 12 novels (starting with two 5-book arcs and two companion novels), and a companion book providing some of his notes and whatnot. His next story landed two trilogies. He followed that up with a single-volume novel (mostly to prove to himself that he could write a sweeping fantasy in just one book), and his latest is a four-book arc. He also published his second novel (written in the 1970s, not published until the 1990s), and a thriller in 2002.

This success is absolutely amazing. To end a career with 27 published novels is astounding.

In looking up a couple things for this entry, I discovered that I missed his passing in 2009. The industry truly lost a titan who was a master of the craft. Like many of his fans, his books had a profound effect on my life. I can still, 12 years later, remember the day I stumbled across him. I was at Barnes & Noble with my mom, just browsing through books. I kept a little notebook in my pocket when we went to bookstores to jot down books that caught my eye to look for later at the library. I stumbled across Polgara the Sorceress, and the cover caught my imagination, and the back-cover blurb clinched it for me. I checked it out later that week, and was caught instantly. I read it everywhere. At lunch, in class after finishing my work, at home. I devoured it in just a couple of days. After that, I moved on to his other books.

They still amaze me, and settling in to reread them is like reconnecting with an old friend. I reread Polgara, Belgarath, The Belgariad and the Mallorean once or twice a year, and typically all in a row. It always renews my sense of adventure, and helps put all the little problems in my life into perspective.

The worlds he created were well-developed, and spanned across continents, mapped out in great detail, and filled with a score of minor characters. Each country had its own geography, its own dress, its own customs.

Each book even went beyond simply providing an epic story, but probed at ideas much larger. The meaning of destiny, the meaning of religion, the meaning of time.

Of all of his books, Polgara the Sorceress has always been my favorite. Expanding on the already deep world of the Belgariad and the Mallorean, its two companion novels, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress take a step back and go through the events leading up to those books.

Polgara the Sorceress is, even on its own, a rich story spanning the three thousand years in which Polgara served the destiny that had been provided for. Her gentle pain at watching her friends and her family (except her father, Belgarath) grow old and die is heartbreaking. And throughout the story (which is told in the first person) you even get little quips and jabs made towards the characters of the Belgariad, providing humor throughout the story.

Eddings' books are funny, filled with adventure and memorable characters. Whenever I finished one of his series, there was always a kind of melencholy. Eddings draws you so completely into the world of these people that you become emotionally tied up in them, and saying goodbye, knowing that their stories are done, is sad. Even though the story is done, and Eddings ties up all the loose ends, he leaves his world moving forward, and I always sat back and wondered what happened to these characters as their lives progressed after the adventure and into the newly changed world.

If you haven't read one of his books yet, go and do so. You won't be disappointed.

XBox and Kinect

2011-01-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

One of the big releases this year was XBox's Kinect system. At first, my husband and I weren't overly interested in the Kinect. It looked pretty cool, but just not enough to justify the price for us. But, this Christmas, our 7-yr-old went over our heads to the big man in red himself, and we found a shiny new XBox with Kinect under our tree.

Overall, I've found to be an impressive system. The time delay between reading your actions and executing them on the screen is no more than any other controller (which is actually rather impressive when you consider how many calculations it has to do to translate full-body movement). The voice commands work fairly well, as long as you speak clearly. The infra-red sensors even recognize you when you're signed in, so if someone has to cut in front of you while you're playing, it doesn't read their movements as input.

However, it is not without its drawbacks. Our playing space is 6.5 feet deep, and the sensor sits about 5.5 feet above the floor. Usually, this is suitable for a lot of gameplay. But when doing movements that lift over my head, or involve laying on the floor (usually during working out), the angle doesn't quite pick it up correctly, and the floor-based movements especially get largely cut off.

Calibrating the sensor is fairly easy and intuitive. Initially, you just stand with a little card (that comes with Kinect) and adjust it to fit into a certain space, then the system scans it. Fine-tuning for a play session just simply requires standing still in the center of your play space while it reads your body and adjusts accordingly.

However, I have yet to find any way to fine-tune it manually where you can adjust the viewing angle on your own. This would have been a huge improvement, especially if it could be done on the fly during gameplay without having to quit out of your current game session. Adding this alone would make problems with movements that extend upwards, or require laying on the floor, almost completely go away.

The Kinect holds a lot more potential than I really granted it when I heard about it. Workout games (which I'll be talking about in more detail later this month), dance games, and the like are all a lot more fun with the Kinect. The ability to do engage in games without having to figure out the best way to hold a controller makes it a lot more fun, and a lot easier to just dive into the action.

I haven't messed around with it a whole lot outside of my workout game, but I think as time goes on, Kinect is just going to get better and better.

Assassin's Creed II

2011-01-11T01:30:00.001-07:00

The acclaimed sequel to the hit Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed II took the already hit formula and ran with it. Assassin's Creed was an amazing game, but ACII blew it out of the water. The story of Desmond picks up immediately where the first on ends. As you and Lucy escape Abstergo and reach the Assassin safe house, you learn a lot more about the overplot that was hinted at in the first game. As the plot thickens, and you begin to learn the true significance behind the search for the Pieces of Eden.

What really amazed me about the game, was that I wrote my review of Assassin's Creed before I started playing the second (although ACII was long since out). Almost every problem I had with the original was addressed, even if not perfected. Ezio's character was far more fleshed out than Altair. His motives were more clearly defined, and his drive for justice for his family creates a sense of immediacy and real engagement for the player; so much more than provided by Altair more or less simply following orders.

One of the best parts about Ezio's character that makes him far more enjoyable to play than Altair is the lack of monologuing. He doesn't sit and engage in a one-way conversation every time he kills someone, blatantly and unimaginatively spelling things out for the player. Instead, Ezio engages in active dialogues with his allies, and while he occasionally mutters to himself, it's more natural, and not nearly as intrusive.

The story is far more coherent, and the past and present are much more closely linked. In the first one, especially if you took long breaks during play, you could almost forget about Desmond's story. What Desmond goes through is only tentatively related to what Altair is doing. In ACII, however, while the cuts to the present were still rare, you did at least get voiceover contact that helps provide background about the other characters, and some of the in-game objectives. While this may not seem like much, it is enough to keep the player anchored to Desmond's storyline.

While combat and other gameplay is very much the same as in the first, Ezio comes with a slightly larger bag of tricks than his predecessor. A variety of weapon types are available, including upgrades to the iconic wrist blade, including the ability to poison, and a double blade, allowing for killing multiple targets. With these, comes new ways to kill your targets. Poison tends to be fairly discrete when the situation demands it, but can be difficult to execute without notice. More fun are the opportunities offered by the double blade, which allow you to perform air assassinations (descending upon one or two victims, driving your blade in as you land) and double assassinations where you can walk up to two targets and down both at once.

A few new weapons provide some interesting gameplay. First, the smoke bombs. Using this to distract guards in tight spots gives you the option of either running away, or just slipping through the chaos executing them with your wrist blade. The second new addition to your personal armory is a pistol attached to your wrist blade. It's loud, it attracts a lot of attention if used in populated areas. But it has the benefit of one-shotting enemies at a good distance. You are also given daggers, but I found little use for these.

However, while they tried to expand on the weapon selections in the game, they missed the mark. They gave the weapons a wider range of stats, attempting to give you an option between being able to hit harder against better armored targets (using mauls), being more defensive with the ability to deflect incoming strikes, or simply dealing more damage. However, because the mauls and defensive weapons were more suited to individual enemy types, and you couldn't switch equipped weapons on the fly, it wasn't much of a decision. I really think they could have taken that decision a little bit further.

One of the new features in the game was the use of money. You could use it to upgrade your stronghold, increasing your income, you could purchase upgrades and other items, and you could hire citizens to help you out. You can gain money in a number of ways. You can find treasure boxes scattered around every city, you can pick pockets, complete small jobs around the city, or you can earn it from your stronghold. It was a good idea, but one that quickly becomes trivial. First, after a few upgrades to your stronghold, and keeping up on clearing out your stronghold's moneybox, and you will quickly have more than enough for expenses and filling out your upgrades. This quick trivialization of the money system distracted from the novelty, and could have been better developed.

Another feature that got woefully undeveloped was the use of dyes to change the color of your clothes. This change is purely cosmetic. I felt that this had a lot of potential for providing possible camouflage and disguise in cities, but the idea was completely undeveloped. It was a fun idea (even if I stuck with classic Assassin white), but other than that, it served no purpose.

All things considered, the deeper plot and character development gave a great boost to the already strong game. The story was well-paced, and the character development was a great deal deeper than the first. I haven't started on Brotherhood yet, but if Ubisoft continues to build on and improve the features of their game, They will have one of the best games ever made on their hands.

The Social Network

2011-01-10T00:31:00.002-07:00

The Social Network is the film that follows Mark Zuckerberg's rise from Harvard nerd to the youngest billionaire in the world. The story itself is rather interesting. Mark, after a long night of drinking following a breakup creates a website. A rather simple website even, you just go to the site and are given the photos of two girls, and the user simply clicks on the one he/she thinks is prettier.

This site, FaceSmash, doesn't sound particularly impressive at first glance. But, to create this site, Mark had to hack the student directory of almost every dormitory house, and the site brought in over 22,000 hits in a matter of hours and caused the school's network to shut down. After that, some fellows from one of the more prestigious houses try to get him to program a site called Harvard Connection. Mark stole their idea and expanded it to a far broader base, while maintaining the exclusivity that Harvard Connection was trying to provide. After borrowing some money from a friend, his career takes off. He tramples anyone and everyone that stands in his way, and eventually ends up in court hearings being sued by several of those people.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Mark Zuckerberg. Jesse Eisenberg has all the charm of Michael Cera, but the ability to play much deeper and more complex characters. Mark is almost an anti-hero. He cheated the creators of Harvard Connection of their idea, he cheated his best friend out of his share of the business, he was a jackass to his girlfriend. When confronted and dragged to court, he was never attentive in these meetings. He worked on his site, he daydreamed. He viewed the events around him with a mildly curious detachment.

You can never really root for him as he faces his obstacles. They were so clearly of his own making, and he just as clearly felt little remorse for them. But at the same time, while he was arrogant, there wasn't a great deal of gloating over his adversaries. He just did what he felt was best for the creation of his company, regardless of who got mowed down along the way.

At the same time, however, you never feel a terrible amount of sympathy for those he trampled over. The three jilted creators behind Harvard Connection all came from substantial money. Two of them (brothers) even rowed for the United States in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. His best friend and initial business partner also had money, and all four of them had perfectly lucrative futures ahead of them.

Even Mark Zuckerberg was never in any real sense of peril. If, at any time, Facebook had failed, he had more than enough skill with computers to get hired on at any major IT company. It made the story, strangely enough, more interesting. In most of these other "real-life" stories surrounding the creation of great things, there's almost a sense of melodrama in how the characters overcame obstacles and gave everything they had for the small chance of success.

Jesse Eisenberg's performance was not the only noteworthy performance. Justin Timberlake's portrayal of the erratic and charismatic Sean Parker, founder of Napster, was masterful. Timberlake completely inhabited his character, creating a man similar in many ways to a natural disaster. He sweeps in and, despite the fact that he is clearly an emotionally unbalanced man, spending too much time trading on his success to throw wild parties with cocaine and young floozies. Despite the fact that he is incredibly unbalanced, there was some kind fire behind him that made him valuable to Mark in making Facebook the vast success it is today.

The movie was incredibly well done, and definitely worth seeing, even if you aren't big on Facebook. The story surrounds a peculiarly complex young man as fortune, quite nearly, falls directly into his lap.

Cataclysm: Website

2011-01-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

With Cataclysm, Blizzard released a new website. The new Battle.net has a lot of interesting bells and whistles that I enjoy enough to write about. First and foremost, the look is a lot cleaner. Things are organized a little more intuitively. Comments on Blizzard's news items actually have indented threading now! This makes it a little easier to follow the replies. I wish they would add this to the forums, but given the average IQ of the playerbase, they'd rarely end up under the correct post I'm sure.

I do dislike General doubling as the Suggestion forum. Having a separate suggestion forum helped keep down some of the clutter and made it easier to run through them offering my two cents.

One of the biggest changes in the website is the information available when you are logged into your account. I can check upcoming events (whether static game events or guild events), I can skim the guild news for what my guild has been up to that day, and most importantly, I can see how many auctions I have up, sold, expired, and how much gold from the AH is sitting in my mailbox, and even how full my mailbox is.

Not only can I keep an eye on my main's economic activities, but it also allows me to check alts without spending fifteen minutes logging between characters. This, to me, is probably the best thing ever. I can even browse the auction house without logging on (or subscribing to the mobile AH).

A number of other small features has made it so the WoW website is worth regular perusal. None of them are earth-shattering enough for me to discuss in detail, but here's a quick list:

Easily track average item level on the Armory.
Find my active realms at the bottom of the forums listing without having to scroll through a list of all realms.
List of popular forum topics to glance at to see if any catch my interest.
Ability to change active character from a dropdown menu rather than navigating to a different page.
Latest Blue posts at the top of the forum directory
Quick links from players/mobs/items to their page on WoWhead
Better compartmentalization of web features makes it finding what you want a lot easier.

All in all, the new website provides a lot of new functionality and a lot of new features. Now, it's actually worth checking out on a regular basis, instead of just on Tuesdays while waiting for servers to come back up.

Cataclysm: Vashj'ir

2011-01-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Vashj'ir is Cataclysm's (and WoW's first) underwater zone. This change of venue provides an experience that's quite unique from the other zones. The other zones, especially those introduced in Cataclysm, are all very well designed. The new zones follow solid story lines, interesting quests, and a feeling of real progression in the world with use of phasing.

But running around underwater is something else altogether. The first major challenge is coming to terms with the 3-dimensionality of it. Now, you're just looking around you on a 2D plane for enemies and quest objects, now you're coping with enemies and objectives above and below you.

It's an interesting format, and it creates a new sense of immersion. The zone also lacks a lot of the single-toned lack of variation that other zones often have. You have kelp forests, deep abysses, high elf/naga ruins, and you even get to go running around a giant squid.

One of the quest lines I found the most interesting was one that sent you back in time to play as a naga Battlemaiden. You uncover stirring intrigue, deep mysteries, and epic battles. It's so vastly removed from anything else you encounter in the game.

While I was incredibly happy with the other zones as well (Uldum is probably my favorite) but the uniqueness and innovation present in Vashj'ir (and awesome sea horse mounts) makes it more than worth going through, and even more than once.

Cataclysm: Achievements

2011-01-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today I wanted to look at one of my favorite things in the World of Warcraft: achievements.

Achievements is a large part of why this game has held my interest for so long. When I got bored, I could go chase down some achievements. I did pretty well, too. I think there was only a dozen or two achievements outside of the raiding and PvP that I was missing.

It pushed me to explore areas of the game that I otherwise wouldn't have been interested in. Before achievements, I didn't bother with world events, much PvP, the Stranglethorn Fishing Tournament or exploring the outer reaches of every zone. I certainly never thought I'd get around (and find others interested in) old-world raids and dungeons.

Blizzard has given us a reason to push outside of our comfort zone, and pursue areas of the game that we would otherwise have skipped over. I certainly don't think I'll ever get Arena Master, or Battle Master. Most of the raid achievements (since I no longer actively raid) will have to wait till they are long obsolete. But, there is never a lack of things to do on my main, and my interest in the game is made stronger because of that.

The 200+ new achievements added in Cataclysm encourage you to really take a look around this new world of ours.

There's the standard fare of exploration and completing X amount of quests in zone Y. There's even more that are plugged in as "gimme" achievements to keep people happy as the realm of attainable achievements is a bit larger. Namely things like completing a certain quest chain, or bouncing on a trampoline, or completing a certain daily so many times or in a certain time limit. Naturally, Glory of the meta-achievements exist, with their requisite requirement achievements ready to go.

All in all, there seems to be plenty to keep me entertained and shelling out my $15/mo. However, it has not been without its disappointments. First, it seems that perhaps our good friend Hemet Nesingwary has hung up his gun and is no longer depopulating all of Azeroth of a myriad of critters. This was disappointing since his quests have been around in every iteration of WoW since Vanilla.

Also, the rare-spawns of Cataclysm don't have a deathwarrant out. Getting "Bloody Rare" took me a good six months to finish. I got up extra early every morning some time after Wrath came out and would scour Outlands, looking for those final rare spawns. I'm still 7 mobs shy of Frostbitten.

Also missing from this expansion are further iterations in the mount and companion chains. I still plan on collecting as many as I can, but it would be nice to see that little flash of gold at the bottom of my screen to reward my efforts.

Altogether, not a bad set of achievements, but it is missing just enough to feel lacking.

Cataclysm: Dungeons

2011-01-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dungeons in Cataclysm have taken a huge change from what was the norm in Wrath of the Lich King. Gone are the days of the 15 Minute Roflstomp. Now, dungeons require patience, skill, and a level of awareness that hasn't been seen since Burning Crusade.

One of the bigger changes is that to queue for one of the new dungeons, you first must find the entrance in the world. No more logging in for the first time and jumping right in. With the increase in difficulty, Blizzard has also added a minimum average item level to be able to queue for dungeons. This helps keep people who have no hope of performing to the needed level from getting in.

On the downside, these two features have pretty much killed the ability to dungeon-level from 80 to 85. I can understand the changes, certainly, but since that was my preferred method for leveling my alts, it can be a little frustrating. My Death Knight alt is halfway through Deepholm, and I already feel a little sick of the place. With my Paladin and Mage already to 80, and my Shaman and Druid almost there, it is going to quickly grow old.

It has been rather amusing to me to see all the QQ on the forums about the major leap in DPS queue times with the Random Dungeon Finder. People think that this is somehow all Blizzard's fault, and that they can somehow fix it. They fail to consider that (1) people are still leveling, (2) people (especially tanks and healers) are still gearing, and (3) with the rewards from running with your guild, many are doing that, not only for the rewards, but also for a more dependable run.

Queue times do seem to be slowly decreasing though. Saw my first queue today that was only 32 mins, which is a step down from the 45 minute queue. I don't particularly mind, but between the queue and the length/difficulty of the dungeons, my daily heroic is taking 2 or 3 hours, which is a huge jump to the 30-40 minutes from Wrath.

But, dungeons are so much more fun now. They are difficult, they require crowd control, and they require people to be on their toes. This is what made me fall in love with the WoW dungeon system in the first place. Pugging may be incredibly frustrating at times, but it is certainly doable. PuGs are, however, a much different beast than they were before. Now, you can't carry people. The elitist assholes that ragequit after the first wipe make waiting around for a new member a real pain.

The change in dungeons was certainly a welcome one, but a lot of people are slow on the uptake. You either have elitists that think the group sucks and is a waste of time if anything at all goes wrong because of the ease with which they blew through Wrath, or you have people who still think dungeons are just AoE fests and they can just plow through without any consideration for how their class works, or the mechanics of a fight.

There's still three instances I haven't tried (Grim Batol and Blackrock Caverns due to not finding the entrance yet, and Throne of the Tides because I leveled out of its range on normal before I had the chance to run it). However, those that I have tried are incredibly well designed to require skill, ingenuity, and the sincere effort of everyone involved.

Bravo, Blizzard. Bravo.

Cataclysm: Worgen

2011-01-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

Worgen are the new Alliance race in Cataclysm. Their starting area, Gilneas is exceptionally well-crafted. Blizzard took what it learned from the success of the Death Knight starting area, and put it into practice here. You aren't just running around learning the game, which is the feeling of the older starting zones. You're progressing through a story.

You still get quests telling you to go kill X amount of Y mob, but unlike other areas, there's a definite reason. In other areas, like Elwynn Forest, you aren't killing random mobs that serve no purpose but to be killed by lowbies. You're trying to make a difference in your area. You're thinning out the invading Forsaken. You're killing commanders. You're gathering resources to help your people. Not all of the quests are terribly interesting, but most are, and serve to forward the story.

The story gets especially interesting when your human form finally falls to the curse of the Worgen that bite you early in the zone. The cinematic that it cuts to to describe your fall from grace is absolutely chilling.

As your character levels, you are pushed back by the invading Forsaken throughout Gilneas. You're never questing far from the current base of operations, giving you a more enclosed progression. This is actually very nice, as you don't have to crisscross the whole zone as you do for many other starting areas.

There is also a thematic break from your standard human zones. Rather than having their area drawn from Stormwind and other human zones, they are given a Victorian theme that really sets them apart from the other races of Azeroth. Walking through the city of Gilneas, you really get the feeling of 19th century London. Even the NPCs speak with a cockney accent. This is such a break from the rest of the feel of World of Warcraft, yet doesn't feel out of place. Instead, it gives a uniqueness to the zone that is entertaining, and doesn't give off the feel of "Same Shit, Different Zone".

The story is incredibly rich. Invading Forsaken, betrayal of the king, loss of friends and family, and a look at the lives of the common people. It's one of the few starting zones where I've actually read the quests and got involved with the story. The story has consequences far reaching into Azeroth, as you learn more about the perfidy of Sylvanas, and the path she and her Forsaken are taking against Azeroth.

I have not yet played Goblins, but this is by far the best starting zone Blizzard has conceived. Visually beautiful, brilliant story, and few disappointments (namely that Worgens don't have a racial mount and instead get the ability to run faster, much like Tauren's Plainswalking in Vanilla).

Cataclysm: Hunter

2011-01-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

Cataclysm has brought a lot of changes to the hunter class. The biggest of these is the switch over to focus. This change was the one that had me most concerned about keeping my hunter my main. It sounded at first like it was going to be much like how energy works for rogues and kitties, which drives me nuts.

However, the change has been a good one. Once you get used to it, focus is actually very easy to manage. With the cooldown removal on Arcane Shot, my rotation can be pretty flexible. I just have to have enough focus for Kill Command every few seconds, but with time for about 3 shots in between those, I can consider the use of cooldowns and do quite a bit of burst damage, as well as respectable sustainable damage. Blizzard has said that Beast Mastery and Marksman are still running a little too low for them, so I even have a small buff to look forward to in the future.

Camouflage is amazing, especially for setting up trap-pulls in dungeons. The able to be stealthed from ranged attacks and reducing aggro radii, it's a lot easier to get close enough to fire off the trap and get down to killing. I don't choose to PvP very often, but I'm sure this move would come in incredibly handy there as well.

This brings us to our next feature, Trap Launcher. While heavy-duty CC may be commonplace again, gone are the days of edging to the mobs, laying a trap, pulling, and trying to kite the mob over your trap. This was incredibly frustrating, and this (along with a few other problems) made hunter CC decidedly sub-par for instances. Now, you can fire the trap directly onto the mob you're trapping and get down to business.

Traps themselves have been upgraded as well. Freezing Trap now has a duration of 60 seconds, but a cooldown of only 30. This gives a wide margin for retrapping. Combined with the launcher, hunter CC is more than capable than keeping a mob locked down for as long as necessary.

Cataclysm has brought us a lot of new pets as well. Dedicated dogs (instead of just wolves and hyenas), frisky foxes, buzzing beetles, and manic monkeys have been added, each with their own special abilities. And for the pet-collector, a new stabling and summoning system. Stables now hold 20 pets, which is more than enough for avid collectors of spirit beasts and other unique pets. We can't yet have one of every type, but for most hunters, this is more than enough. Call Pet has seen a change as well. No more cooldown on changing out pets. You pick 5 pets to be available to you at all times, with each slot getting its own summon spell. Just dismiss your current pet and summon the one you want. This makes switching for the task at hand incredibly simple.

Hunters are looking to be both very viable and still unique in terms of what we can do. I'm excited to see what else this expansion will bring us, and where future expansions will take us.

Cataclysm: General Impressions

2011-01-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

My look at Cataclsym is going to be spread out across several entries talking about the main features I'm interested in, but I wanted to start off with some general impressions about the expansion overall.

One of the first things that anyone playing will notice is the change wrought upon the world by The Shattering. Zones are rendered at a better graphics quality, and the terrain was changed, and in most cases made more interesting. Before, every zone was a little monotone. Not as badly as the crayon-colors of Outland, but there was still only one general texture. Now, regions have a more natural feel. Whether it's new oases in a desert, or a pit of roiling twilight badness, the world feels more complete.

The ability to fly in Azeroth has opened up all kinds of new experiences. Traveling through the old world is no longer a burden, and you can better see the destruction and new layout of the world.

Cooking, fishing, and most of the Jewelcrafting dailies are centered in Stormwind, making getting those knocked out a little less obnoxious than previous expansions (yes, cooking dailies in Wrath were in Dalaran, but for the rest, and through Burning Crusade, it required a lot of running all over the world).

It's also convenient having portals to each of the five new zones available (after completing some initial quests to get to the zone). This makes the prospect of heading back to SW for whatever reason (dailies, hitting the auction house, whatever) less of a pain in the ass.

So far, my only real issue with the expansion is that Chaos Orbs (this expansions equivalent of Primal Nethers and Frost Orbs) are soulbound. I find it a pity that Blizzard caved to the idiots that couldn't figure out to hit "Need" if they want it.

Over the next week-ish, I'll be going deeper on Hunters, Worgen, Goblins, Achievements, Dungeons, the underwater zone of Vashj'ir, and finally the new WoW website. But my overall impression is that this is the best version of WoW since it's creation in 2004.

Bravo, Blizzard. Bravo.

New Year's

2011-01-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

And so begins a new year. As I was watching the televised festivities last night, I began to wonder about the curious importance we humans place on time, and its unerring march. Personally, I have never put much into the holiday. As a child, it was mostly an excuse to stay up late, and time with family. This feeling hasn't changed. I enjoy watching the ball drop, and as the ball falls, I kiss my husband. I make resolutions, some of which I may actually keep. But beyond that, the holiday has never held any real significance for me.

School may be a part of that attitude. In my mind, the year starts in August. The upcoming return to school is part of the same school year, even if it is a new semester. My next semester also doesn't start for a few weeks yet, so its hard to feel like this is a significant beginning.

To be honest, I don't see the significance in celebrating a new year. Time is time. It marches along at the same pace regardless of how we try to parse it into manageable pieces. People talk about trying to make this year better than their last. But isn't that just a little unreasonable? There is always pressures, always strife in our lives. And should our goals to better ourselves really be so stringently based on a relatively arbitrary measure of time?

Sure, years are physically measurable as our sun whips this small little marble we call home around itself. But, the purpose of this is simply to change the seasons. And for most of us, we no longer hold the change of seasons in the same necessity. Most of us don't plant our food in the spring, or harvest in the fall, or work the fields in between. Winter is not something that must be as stringently prepared for as it was ages ago. Throw on snow tires, unpack the sweaters, and throw an emergency kit into the car.

And yet, this day so arbitrarily chosen still holds a special significance. Rather than focusing on continuously improving ourselves, we do it in these little spurts, energized through January, and maybe even February, but often our goals are long forgotten by the time spring rolls around.

Even I, perhaps out of habit, chart my goals for this upcoming year, with milestone checkpoints at the start of each month to keep me on track. Carefully thought out, I managed to separate things into chunks I think will are realistic. This tends to be the greatest stumbling block for resolutions, too many of us bite off more than we can chew. But it is curious to me why we wait for the new year to begin on these things. Why put it off? If you come up with an idea to better yourself and/or your circumstances, why not seize the moment and start on it right away? Would setting goals to be started on November 1 and culminating them by October 31 not hold the same significance?

Maybe I'm a little biased. My religion follows closely to the Celtic calender, and our New Year's Eve is Samhein (Halloween). So I'm accustomed to looking at things a little differently.

So here I am, following the same curious customs that I'm here wondering the purpose of. I have my goals for the year laid out. And I have strong, realistic goals that can be measured. None of this "I'm going to be more generous" or "I'm going to be a better person" bullshit. I find such goals to be beyond silly. They are so immeasurable, and so subjective as to be impossible to fulfill, or not fulfill, depending on how honest you are with yourself.

And so, let's embark on this silly segment of time we call a new year. May your goals, whatever they may be, and however silly they may be, be achieved, and may obstacles crumble before your path.

Happy New Year.

Motivation

2010-08-13T11:18:00.000-06:00

Motivation is a tricky thing. So many of our goals that we set for ourselves are far-reaching, the kinds of things where success is a long ways off. Maybe it's weight loss, maybe it's getting published. Maybe it's smaller goals that we wonder if they are really worth the trouble.

So it's vitally important that, when approaching any kind of task, we examine the motivation behind our goals. Reminding ourselves that even the smaller goals have an important place. Keeping our eyes on that wonderful feeling of satisfaction that comes with accomplishing something.

As I look at my plan for the next 10 days, I see a number of things that need to be done. Back to school clothes shopping and haircuts for the kids, the big pre-semester cleaning I do every semester, various ways of prepping for school and getting on top of that. All good things.

More good things is working on my writing and game designing. These are important to my professional development. The better my portfolio, the better internships, and later jobs, I can get for myself. More good things.

Then I also have quite a bit of WoW and other gaming goals. While I doubt I'll beat both Uncharted and ACII like I originally wanted, I'm trying to take a little time every day to slaughter Templars. While my WoW goals are more contingent on finishing prior to the release of Cataclysm (comeon Blizz, give me a date already!!!!!!!one!1eleven) I know that once school starts to get into full swing, my WoW time will dwindle to virtual nothingness. I'd rather try to meet as many of those goals prior to school starting, where I could spend the final countdown to the Cataclysm gearing and poking through some final things.

Obviously, as much as I prefer the reverse, the focus is on my other, "more important" goals. Trying to accomplish these around the everyday tasks of taking care of the kids, losing weight, and all the other day-to-day stuff that weighs us down and eat up our time.

That's why it's so important to know why you're doing these things. Keep it right in front of you. Write it down and tape it to your desk where you'll see it every minute. Knowing that you're dragging through rehashing last semester's stupid Assembly assignments so that way you don't have to do them during the semester when you're more pressed for time. Knowing that tediously porting the 2D RPG from crappy C++ to the super-shiny C# will give you better options to create your own game.

Keep your eyes on the prize. The prize will keep you motivated when the tedious intermediate steps drag you down. If nothing else, think of the satisfaction of completing a goal and being able to smugly tell everyone how awesome you are because of how much you can accomplish.

Well, I guess I better hop to it. After all, I have less time today with Dungeons to complete and Dragons to slay tonight.

The Importance of Planning

2010-08-12T14:37:00.000-06:00

Here I am, a week and a half before school starts. I'm looking at what I wanted and needed to get done over my summer vacation, and exactly one word comes to mind.

FUCK.

I'm beyond behind on all this stuff. Why? Because I didn't plan. Sure, I had a nice little list where I could check off everything I accomplished, but that list kept growing, usually faster than I could knock things off. Now I'm finding myself stressed as the countdown timer to when I'm back in school (and all my free time goes out the window) quickly reaches Zero Hour.

A million and three things to do, and not nearly enough time to do them. But it's not too late. A re-evaluation of my goals, and a tight work schedule and I could get at least a good amount of stuff done. Carefully keeping on track, and not letting myself get distracted with arguments with idiots spouting the merits of pirating, or reading up on the vast amounts of amusing material on the internet is an important step.

But planning is a fickle thing. Don't plan enough, and you risk end up not accomplishing what you need to do. But, if you plan your time too tightly, you can cause a great deal of stress when things don't go according to plan. Something takes longer than planned, an unexpected errand comes up. Even fun can become stressful as you worry if the impromptu movie with the family is going to royally screw you.

It's a matter of finding balance. What can you reasonably accomplish in a day? What can you allot a little extra time to to create a buffer if something goes awry?

It's a fine line, and I know very few who have been able to master this skill. But, if you can, things will fall into place a lot more quickly and easily, reducing stress and giving you the life you want to live.

Dungeons and Dragons: The Importance of a Flexible DM

2010-08-08T12:00:00.004-06:00

This past Friday, my husband and I ended up with much the same group we played with last week. Same DM, and 2 of the 4 other players were the same as well. Our group dynamic is one where we fight when we should negotiate, and negotiate when we should fight.

This week's particular module: DRAG 2-2 This Gathering Storm.

Our DM, fortunately, is one that is able to think on the fly, and adjust to our group's unique way of handling things. Something the folks at The Escapist agree with is that the DM should not be hard and fast to the module, and should not discourage the players from creating their own story.

When our group managed to start a brawl in a brothel (something not covered in the module at all) he was able to quickly match us punch for punch, and maintained balance by removing a different skirmish along the way. What ensued was a barrel of laughs, and a great deal of enjoyment as we were able to react to a situation in ways that our characters naturally would. Other DMs I've played with would have stuck to the script, and guided us back on track.

Ours, glory be, let us build our own story. He even let us burn down the ugly building.

Later, we were supposed to confront the pirates we suspected of heinous acts outright, causing them to be mistrustful of us, and against us in the upcoming battle.

We joined them instead. Rather than being outright distrustful, we skill-checked our way into the crew where we could gather more evidence in the fight to come.

Again, our DM was able to adjust and roll with the punches, allowing us to maintain control over our own story.

The result was the same as last week: we managed to build a story that was utterly unique to our group. This is the core of why I love tabletop gaming. Our little group (hopefully we'll get the same people next week) has become an inside joke. Our modules will never be handled the same way by anyone else. Every module I play with these people makes it harder and harder to imagine playing the same modules with a different group (and character). The stories we come up with are just too unique and too much fun to get the same result elsewhere.

Especially when too many DMs can't roll with the punches.

Cataclysm: A Look at Hunters (BM)

2010-08-07T16:56:00.000-06:00

With Cataclysm coming, I wanted to take a brief look at the changes coming to each class. As my main is a Hunter, this seemed to be the most logical place to start. Sadly, I'm not in Beta, so I can't do my own empirical tests of things like DPS changes and increases.

This look will be far more in-depth than any of the other classes. I've been playing a hunter for 4 years, and have nearly 6 months of /played on her. I've raided on her, dabbled in PvP, and have theorycrafted the class pretty extensively through BC, and a lesser extent in Wrath.

First, a look at the talent trees.

For Beast Mastery (my preferred spec, and the spec I'll be switching to when Cata drops) I would (if the spec wasn't currently nerfed to the ground) spec this way. When Cataclysm comes out, I'd be looking to go with something like this.

So let's look at what I gain, what I lose, etc etc.

Improved Aspect of the Hawk has been removed. Currently, you have a chance to increase your ranged attack speed. But, as Haste is being changed to affect utility regen, this was something I was expecting.

Endurance Training has also been removed (in fact, it's cousin in the Survival tree has been removed as well). I don't have a major beef with this as with the change over to focus, Stamina will most likely be our 2nd heaviest stat, making up for the increases provided by these.

Focus Fire has been removed. Without being able to check empirically, I am not concerned as this ability (2% increase to damage when your pet is active, and your pet gets and increase chance to crit when under effects of Kill Command) is one that is very easy to simply build into the class. Even if we lose the 2% increase, it's not a huge nerf. A 10,000 dps hunter would lose 200 dps. That's not a huge nerf.

Aspect Mastery has been revamped to a 3-pt talent that will provide the same bonus to Aspect of the Hawk, though we lose the bonus to Aspect of the Monkey. It buffs the regen of Aspect of the Fox, which is different from the buff it currently provides Viper, but since Fox won't have the damage reduction debuff, it really doesn't matter.

Also removed are both Ferocity and Unleashed Fury. While these were important pet buffs, it seems these will be covered in the Beast Mastery's Class Mastery abilities, so I'm not concerned.

Improved Mend Pet is pretty much unchanged. The difference being that they removed the cost mechanism. Considering the ability now costs 0 focus, I guess I can take the loss of the 20% cost reduction.

Bestial Discpline has taken a huge hit. Instead of doubling your pet's Focus regeneration, it will only increase it by 30%. However, this again depends on how other mechanics interfere. With Haste now increasing regen, it's possible that the rest of the pet's regen will come from the player's haste.

Intimidation appears to have been outright removed. While not a crippling nerf, one that I'm not thrilled with. It was nice having a stun on hand for PvP that didn't rely on the specific pet I was using. While it wasn't a move I necessarily used all the time, or even that often, it was a good "Oh Shit" move. However, it's possible (I wasn't able to find out) that it's simply becoming a trainable option.

Spirit Bond sadly has been left unchanged.This is a pity because it's current incarnation is very lackluster. Regaining only 2% of one's health may be nice while leveling (I'll probably pick it up for leveling to reduce downtime) but for use in groups or PvP, it's just too little to really help. While it is clearly an ability that can become grossly overpowered very quickly, I really think it's in need of a slight buff to make it truly useful.

Frenzy has been nerfed as well. Currently, you can (in my current build) get 8 secs of a 30% increased attack speed after landing a critical strike. This is an ability that with very little effort maintains near constant uptime. Now, you'll be looking at a 15% increase, but with the same uptime. Again, without seeing how attack speeds look in Cataclysm, it's hard to say how big of a nerf this really is.

Beast Mastery's signature talents: Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within have been left unchanged. My only surprise is that with the condensing and consolidation of the talents, they didn't merge these into one talent.

Serpent's Switftness (another ability tied to how Haste currently works) has been removed. Considering weapon speeds haven't been reduced, it will be interesting to see if we can really overcome this. However, with a steep increase to damage, it may balance out.

Ferocious Inspiration is remaining the same, just nicely being reduced to a 1 point talent.

Animal Handler has been removed, which again plays to how well the Mastery ability will compensate.

Cobra Strikes has been only slightly modified. The only difference is only Basic Attacks can be buffed by it, not Special Attacks. Ok, fair enough. A minor nerf.

Longevity and Beast Mastery have been left unchanged.

Kindred Spirits has been massively changed. Rather than granting your pet a damage increase, it increases yours and your pet's focus to 110 max, rather than 100.

There are changes to the "sub" specs of MM and Survival as well, but I'd rather cover these with their respective main specs.

Stay tuned for looks at more classes, other Hunter specs, Hunter pets, and Hunters in general.

Dungeons and Dragons: The Fun of Defining Your Own Adventure

2010-08-06T13:50:00.000-06:00

This past Friday, playing through the Silver Linings quest for Dungeons and Dragons really illustrated why I'm coming to love tabletop gaming, and why in many ways it still surpasses many computer games for me. In Dungeons and Dragons, the choices you make with your friends have consequences that can change the entire game.

During this quest, you're clearing out a Goblin town/cave/thing of Orcs. Now, many groups, when they finally reach the rampaging and murderous Orcs who are mining out the Goblin caves for relics for an unseen master would instantly attack.

Not us. We happened to have a guy (our Fighter, so he's pretty intimidating in the first place) who could speak Orcish. Add in two wizards (myself and another) who used our Prestidigitation to give him things like demon wings, glowing fiery armor, and thunderbolts arcing across said armor, we managed to convince the Orcs to parley with us.

Not only did we successfully bargain with them (turning what should have been a 3-fight quest into a 1-fight quest) but, we managed to save 2 slaves who weren't supposed to be saveable (more just there as window dressing).

We may not have gotten all the rewards, but we managed to solve the quest in a way that was truly unique. To find another group who both reacted as we did, and had the proper make up to be able to accomplish what we managed to accomplish, would be nearly impossible.

When one is used to computer games (consoles are considered computers for this), you're usually given scripted encounters. Even in a game like Dragon Age: Origins, where you can make choices that drastically affect the story of the game, you are still limited by the programming of the game as to what kind of choices you can make.

But in a tabletop game, if you can imagine it (and hit the proper dice rolls for it) you can make it happen. You can discover things that, possibly, no one else who's ever done that particular encounter ever thought of. It makes it far more immersive, and far easier to fall into a roleplaying groove.

I think this is what keeps tabletop gaming so alive, even in this digital age.

Review: Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

2010-08-05T16:40:00.000-06:00

This is one of those movies where only the pleas of my children managed to drag me to the theatre to see. I was sure that the movie would cause me to claw my eyes out in irritation and disgust. However, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

This is not to say it was really "good". The characters were stereotypical of the James Bond and buddy-cop movies. Digs, the German Shepard, is your standard agent who plays by his own rules, and consistently screws up because of it. Butch is the experienced agent with a short amount of patience for the young agent, and comes down (sometimes too harshly) on him for his lack of control. Katherine is the sleek female agent that is smart, capable, yet has a major obstacle she must overcome to save her friends. Kitty Galore is the absolutely insane villain that is determined to destroy those who have wronged her. None of them had any deep development, or motivations that weren't woefully 1-dimensional.

But, the plot, while again not original, was at least solid. There were no glaring plot holes. A little drama, a little intrigue, a little heart-warming tenderness, a little action, and a lot of slapstick made the movie at least tolerable. The humor, while it didn't make me laugh out loud very often, at least had me cracking a smile. Some of the jokes were adult, but without being crass for family viewing. (My personal favorite was the announced seminar "Even if she's a Doberman, don't pinch her"). Kitty Galore having a mouse that takes the place of the evil cat most villains have was vastly amusing, as was the Hannibal Lecter-inspired Mr. Tinkles.

Given the lack of depth, there isn't much more to say about the movie. The bottom line is that if you don't have kids who want to see the movie, don't bother. It's definitely not worth it. But, if your kids are like mine and are dying to see the movie, you can at least go in and have an enjoyable time.

Review: Silent Movie

2010-08-04T12:00:00.001-06:00

Mel Brooks' Silent Movie may not be my favorite of his movies, but was still a highly enjoyable movie.

The movie follows a washed up director trying to make a modern silent movie. The studio, who is in dire straits trying to keep by getting bought out by a conglomerate (a jab at the current events in Hollywood at the time), agrees on the condition that he can nail some big name talent.

He then goes after Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, Marcel Marceau and Paul Newman in an attempt to get talent for his movie.

While the plot is in many ways incredibly predictable, the slapstick comedy is great fun to watch. With Dom DeLuise and Marty Feldman as his two sidekicks, they manage to get in quite a lot of trouble as they go around Hollywood recruiting these actors. One of my favorite things about the movie was you could tell the characters were mouthing obscenities, yet the dialogue cards showed more "family friendly" language.

Really not a whole lot to say about the movie. Character development was thin, the plot was thin, but if you're looking for an enjoyable movie, and you're a fan of Mel Brooks, you'll enjoy this as well.

Review: Robin Hood (1938)

2010-08-03T12:00:00.001-06:00

This retelling of the classic story is one that is both fun to watch, and incredibly well designed.

Many movies from this era tended towards the campy. Special Effects were not really given the same importance that they are today, and often, these movies come off as painfully dated. This movie avoids that, and manages to put together a package that is as enjoyable as any out today.

Errol Flynn plays Robin, and he pulls of the role masterfully. He is cocky, sure, funny and irrepressible. He does the perfect job portraying a bandit who is only acting in the interests of his country. His offhanded remarks carry just the right undertone of threat and insult to them that makes his already witty banter all that much more fun to watch.

I am not going to comment much on the rest of the cast specifically. They all performed their roles beautifully, but I didn't feel were anything truly remarkable. They were all fun characters to watch, fulfilling their responsibility to the storyline admirably.

But where this movie really shined for me was in the visually effects. The movie made use of all eleven Technicolor cameras in existence at the time. For a movie so early on in color, this had all the clarity of any movie today, allowing for bright colors, and a vibrant look that hasn't dimmed over time. The backdrop featured footage that was correctly out of focus, drawing attention away from itself, and maintaining a look of being outside without actually being so.

Another point of interest was that the stuntmen were shot with real arrows (they were carefully padded of course) by the production's archery master (who also plays Robin's opponent in the tournament.) This man also fired Robin's arrow which split his opponent's down the middle, winning him the tournament. This was done in one take, with no camera tricks. Skills.... You're doing it right.

If I had to find one problem with the movie, it would be the lighting. The lighting often felt overly bright, as if everything was taking place at high-noon during the summer. But this was something that didn't really click with me until after viewing, so it really does nothing to downplay the movie.

Truly a masterpiece, and it's very clear why Disney in 1973 and Mel Brooks in 1993 drew so heavily on this movie for their inspiration (Mel Brooks so much so that during the scene where Robin meets John Little that my husband and I were cracking up at the memory of the Mel Brooks scene more so than the already funny 1938 scene).

If you enjoy the story of Robin Hood, this is a must-see. It's enjoyable, funny, and incredibly well crafted.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2010-08-02T13:29:00.000-06:00

With a new movie out and a sequel series set to come out next year, I wanted to take a look at the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The series is an incredible one, particularly for a children's show. while many shows today focus on 11 minute shorts, and even if they go out to the full 20+ minutes, there is rarely a continuous storyline.

TLA transcends this and creates a fully developed world, populated with realistic characters and a perpetual storyline that is both engrossing and well-rounded.

We follow the young Airbender, Aang, as he emerges from a supernatural 100 year sleep. Just before running away and getting trapped in an iceberg, he learns that he is the Avatar. The Avatar has the ability to master all four elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air) whereas normal benders can only master their nation's element. As such a powerful person, the Avatar maintains balance within the world, and can communicate with the Spirit World as well.

Aang was revealed as the Avatar four years early (typically it's revealed at age 16, Aang found out at 12) due to the aggressions of the Fire Nation. So this is all pretty overwhelming, and it's understandable that he fled for what he thought was a few days.

Once he is released from the iceberg he got trapped in, Aang discovers that his absence lead to 100 years of war and strife, as well as the massacre of his people.This drives him, with the help of the Water Tribe siblings Sokka and Katara who found and released him, to travel the world to find masters to teach him the remaining 3 elements so he can set things right.

Meanwhile, he is hunted by Prince Zuko, exiled prince of the Fire Nation. His father banished him, and gave him the impossible-seeming task of finding the Avatar and capturing him before his exile can be lifted.

The series grows and develops with it's characters in a unique way that is not often seen in children's TV. We are introduced to a world with four distinct nations, each with it's own style of dress, mannerisms, local scenery and customs. The animals are all fantasy-like, often created by combining two "real world" animals (such as a platypus-bear or a rabbit-kangaroo). It seems rare to run across such depth of the story world in television. Those that don't simply use our own world tend to only develop what's absolutely necessary.

The characters are both believeable and likeable and go through a number of changes throughout the series to create characters who are very complex. We watch as Aang, who is carefree by nature, struggles to come to terms with all that he must be, and he learns to be less jesterly and more serious about the task at hand, while at the same time balancing his peaceful monk upbringing with the violent war we must fight.

Sokka begins the show as mostly lazy and sarcastic, and yet with a deep drive to prove himself as a warrior to make his father (who he hasn't seen in years due to his father fighting in the war) proud. As the series progresses, we see him realize his potential as a leader and warrior.

Katara is the last waterbender of her tribe. She grapples with discovering how to use her powers on her own, while suffering a great deal of guilt over the death of hers and Sokka's mother, who was killed by Fire Nation soldiers while she was protecting young Katara. She grows in her waterbending prowess, as well as providing a level head for "Team Avatar", as Sokka calls their little group, and making sure that everyone is cared for.

Prince Zuko is perhaps the most complex of all the characters, and certainly goes through the greatest transformation. At first, he is the banished prince, and defines himself by his desire to regain his honor in the eyes of his father, and fulfill his destiny, which he believes is to capture young Aang. As he clashes with his own people, culminating in a betrayal by his sister, the evil Azula, we watch him as he struggles to redefine his destiny and make his own choices in life. Guided by his mentor, his uncle Iroh, he begins a change that leads him down a difficult road to self discovery.

And those are just the four primary characters. We also get a host of other memorable, interesting characters, including many strong female charracters. One of the areas this show excels is in portraying various aspects of female personality while keeping them strong and capable. We see the nurterer, the tomboy, the truly evil, the cheerfully perky, the overly emotionally oppressed. Yet all of these are strong, capable and enthralling characters.

The bending movements of each nation are art in and of themselves. Each is based off a different style of Kung Fu, adding beauty and purpose to the bending movements. Each style was also carefully chosen to match the element it represents. Fire uses a ferocious and powerful style, Earth a more steady and controlled style, Water a slower more rhythmic style, and Air more spinning of the hands and body to simulate tornado like movements.

Visually, it is also beautiful. While each nation draws on heavily from Asian influence, each is unique and diverse. From the almost delicate construction of the Northern Water Tribe's ice city, to the floating citadels of the Air Nomads, to the strong walled fortresses of the Earth Kingdom, and the more traditionally styled Fire Nation, it is an incredible style that is so often lost today.

Emotionally, it showcases the power love, the dangers of obsession, the pain of loss, and struggle to do what you know is right against overwhelming odds. It is a rich, complex and diverse storyline keeps both children and adults interested.

If you have never watched the series, go give it a go. I think you'll enjoy, regardless of your age.

Jaded Scribe's Personal Favorite Episodes:

Book 1: Water
Southern Air Temple
Avatar Roku
The Storm
Siege of the North (2 parts)

Book 2: Earth
The Blind Bandit
Tales of Ba Sing Se
The Guru/Crossroads of Destiny (2 parts)

Book 2: Fire (Jaded's Favorite Season)
Sokka's Master
The Beach
The Avatar and the Firelord
The Western Air Temple
The Firebending Masters
The Boiling Rock (2 parts)
Sozin's Comet (4 parts)

Review: Metropolis

2010-08-01T12:08:00.000-06:00

Metropolis was made in 1927 in Germany by famed director Fritz Lang. The screenplay was written by his wife of the time, Thea von Harbou. It's old-school black and white and silent. So it's not the kind of fare most of us are used to.

One of the first interesting things about the movie, is that while most Science Fiction films can be slated as "Tech Noir" (Tech is bad) or "Tech Blanc" (Tech is good), this movie is very much Tech Neutral. There isn't a big pro or con either way. The technology simply is.

Instead, it focuses on the strains between the Haves, and the Have Nots. However, it also had an additional moral, that gets beaten into the viewer: The Mediator between the Hands and Head must be the Heart. This moral is announced roughly every 15 minutes or so. Subtlety, a German strength it is not.

But, the movie was actually very good in terms of story. It surprises me that no one has done a remake. The story surrounds young Freder, the son of the leader of Metropolis. He lives "topside" with the all the other rich people. Life is good. He gets a different pretty woman every day, food and sunshine are plenty, and is a reflection of all the upper businessmen of the time.

He, like most of the Haves, gives no thought to the Worker class that slave and toil away to keep the machines working to provide paradise to Metropolis' masters. At least, not until a lovely young worker woman appears with a slew of children, giving a stirring speech about how these youngsters should "look upon their brothers" and see the hedonist, carefree lifestyle they live, and that they should hope someday that the Haves will, in fact, accept them as brothers. As she and the children disappear back into the bowels of the city.

Young Freder, instantly enamoured, chases after our young mystery woman (Maria) where he discovers the plight of the worker class, as well as the fact that his beloved is a prophetess. She has foretold the coming of one who will bring peace and happiness to everyone.

I don't want to go any further, so as not to spoil the plot.

The story, while lagging in areas, was very good, and despite the length, kept the viewer interested through most of it. The dialogue cards were a little on the "meh" side, but considering that you don't have a natural dialogue system, and everything has to be handled on a card or two, it's clearly a necessary evil.

The special effects were, for the time, actually quite amazing, and the attention to detail is great. Watching the workers at the machines, they were not just moving pieces, but moved in a carefully choreographed movement that was actually beautiful to watch.

The acting was a little overdone, even for a silent movie though. But this did little to detract from my interest in the film. With it being a silent film, a lot can be forgiven seeing as exaggerated gestures were the best thing they had for conveying emotion.

All in all, if you can dig up this movie somewhere, watch it. Much of the original footage has been lost, but the story is still comprehensible. The version I watched included extra text frames explaining what has happened in the areas you miss.

A truly enjoyable movie, and one that I would love to see revamped and rebooted for the modern era of talkies and color.

It was, given it's origins in Germany, hard to watch on some levels though. While the director was at least partially Jewish, his wife was a supporter of the Nazi party. Given that the actors were German, I could not help but think "So.... Over the next 20 years, how many of you are going to do some very bad things..."

Interesting how an event that holds little personal significance for me (WWII) could still bring about such an uncomfortable feeling when I watch anything with Germans in it from that era.

Review: Toy Story 3

2010-07-31T16:21:00.000-06:00

The third movie of the Toy Story franchise had me worried when I first heard about it. Pixar had been so emphatically against any future sequels that I feared being forced into this one would result in an inferior movie that would be nothing more than a waste of time and money.

I was happily mistaken. Toy Story 3 had all the heart and excitement of its predecessors.

For the first time, we see a toy as the antagonist thoughout the movie. The Prospector was a great antagonist to be sure, but we don't see his true colors until very late into the second film. The toy store owner was clearly the primary adversary. But in this movie, human villainy is virtually non-existent. The franchise stops being about people who treat toys badly (Sid and Al) and moves to toy against toy. This gives a new dynamic to the motivations. Both Sid and Al could almost be excused with "Well, they didn't know that toys have feelings." Now, it's not so cut and dry.

This also presents the opportunity to show off some very complex ideas for a kids' movie. How easy it is for good toys (or people) to be driven to do bad things when they choose a strong leader with bad motives; the danger of "just following orders."

The story also pulls hard at the heartstrings. We see the pain of toys who are no longer played with, have lot friends to charity/trash/garage sales. Uncertain what the future holds for them, and their friendship.

Some aspects were a little cheesy, and could come off as rehashing rather than saluting the previous installments, but this was minimal, and for me didn't distract from the story.

Props, Pixar. Another fine film.

Then Just Roll A Tank

2010-07-30T16:25:00.000-06:00

This post could also be titled "Why I hate being DPS at times".

In World of Warcraft, there is a sweeping attitude that DPS are second class citizens of Azeroth. Whenever a DPS objects to a Tank's behavior (like not letting the DPS get mana, skipping bosses the majority of the group wants to do, etc) they are told they'll be kicked. I've been told many times that I wasn't needed (despite pulling the highest DPS) and that I was more expendable than a penny.

Few people would think twice before kicking a DPS (at least, before the most recent changes to the Vote to Kick system, but even then...) But kicking a tank will rarely pass, as long as the tank can stay alive, he can be as terrible as he wants to be. Waiting 30s for another expendable DPS? No worries. Waiting for 20 minutes for a new tank? No chance. Unless he is making the instance unfinishable, he can be as big of a jerk, as arbitrary as he wants to be.

Few tanks see a problem with rolling on DPS gear (if they do, it's only to avoid seeming hypocrisy). However, if a DPS who is trying to round out their tanking set to start tanking Needs a tanking item, then the Tank throws a hissy fit.

I'm of the opinion that anyone in the group (5-man, raids are different and should be handled by the raid leader) is just as important as anyone else. However, whenever I, or anyone else, protests against the attitude of the tanks, and asks for things to be changed, the most common response seems to be "Well, if you want to be able to ______ (kill optional bosses when you need them, get a more reasonable queue time, etc) then roll a tank."

This, to me, is the most annoying response I could get. My Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock all lack the option to tank (or even heal). And even though my Ret Pally and Unholy DK can tank, I don't want to. So I enjoy the playstyle of DPS.

Why is this a crime? Why am I constantly finding myself punished for it?

Now, I have a tank. Level 76 Druid. It's not that hard. Can it be frustrating and aggravating? Sure. And yes, DPS can piss me off a lot. But, do I think I deserve to force the group into whatever I want, just because I'm the tank? No.

Now, I don't mind the long DPS queues. I do other things during the time, and I understand that it's just one of those things for which nothing can be done right now. I accept it.

I remember once, while doing normal Azjol-Nerub on my Pally, the Healer was "bored" and decided to Leroy the first boss, wiping us all. When he complained that no one else found it funny, I pointed out that I didn't spend 20 minutes in the queue to have my time wasted, and I didn't appreciate his antics.

His response: "Lol. u don't get to complain about queues.ur a pally, just roll tank."

Again, this attitude that DPS are not deserving of respect for their time, or their effort. That as DPS I am at the mercy of the whims of the tank and healer, and if I don't like it, my own fault for being DPS and not one of their high and mighty ranks.

I'm hoping with CC supposedly making a comeback in Cataclysm that the attitude will change. It should also help that with the Defense stat being removed, that tanking will be a little less gear-intensive and more people will be able/willing to tank, allowing for less of the attitude of "I am the irreplaceable tank. Suffer my whims, or wait 20 minutes for a new tank."

Review: Inception

2010-07-29T18:10:00.000-06:00

Inception was a masterful movie. It's so hard to say everything I want to say about it without giving away a lot.

The story was told masterfully. Christopher Nolan weaves together concurrent storylines and locations (moving through layers of a dream) while never making the audience feel lost or confused. Each thread is unique in look and feel and action that even with constant cutting between the layers, the audience never has to stop and figure out what's going on.

The action was constant, while not making the audience feel tired. The special effects were incredible, without being flashy. Nolan even forgoes computer graphics in areas and does things the old fashioned way (in one scene, there is a spinning room. The set actually spun, a la Fred Astaire type effects rather than using CGI). Each location was carefully constructed with it's own unique color undertones, themes, and other design choices.

As for the acting, I could find no complaints. Leonardo DiCaprio put forth the same first-class performance that anyone would expect from him. His character is complex, driven, and very expressive. You have no difficulty buying his character as real, and pulling you through the story. As a pleasant surprise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt also put out a very strong performance. I wasn't expecting him to be bad or lacking, but all I've seen him in have been (500) Days of Summer, 3rd Rock from the Sun and a few other movies and shows when I was a kid. I've never seen him in this kind of movie, but he managed to hold his own, and keep his character performing the task he was meant to. The two female leads were just as masterfully portrayed by Ellen Page (Ariadne) and Marion Cotillard (Mal). Each brought a unique sense and manipulated DiCaprio's character in exactly the right way.

The only flaw to this movie was a largely unavoidable one. A lot of the dialogue was a little forced and filled with exposition. But, really, it couldn't have been done any other way. There is so much background that is vital for the viewer to know that can't really be expressed in any other way. While it could have been written so this information comes forth more organically, it would add a great deal of time the already 2.5 hour long movie. So it wasn't a huge issue for me.

The ending leaves you with something to think about and consider. For this first viewing, I just kicked back and enjoyed the ride. But I'm greatly looking forward to viewing it again to unravel the deep clues and symbols that I grasped the edges of on my first viewing.

If you haven't seen it yet, go now.

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2010-07-26T15:22:00.000-06:00

The fourth and most recent installment of the Indiana Jones series again loses it's way. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but I do want to point out (and counter) some of the problems I and others seem to have in the movie.

First, many have said that the scene where Indy survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator was incredibly unbelievable. I'm willing to buy it, just because that refrigerator was made from 2 inches of solid lead. That will protect you from quite a bit. And it's no less believable than using a self-inflating raft to safely coast down a mountain and off a cliff.

Shia LeBouf plays Mutt. While his acting was hardly high-caliber, his character was still endearing on many levels. As most "bad boys" in the 50s, he was a James Dean wannabe; a Rebel Without a Clue. His obsessive nature over his image was very believable as an adolescent young man that had no direction in his life. So not great, but not so bad as to be irredeemable.

I could even buy the man-eating ants in South America. I'd buy a lot of weird creatures from that region of the world. There is some seriously fucked up shit in the Amazon. Mother Nature was definitely PMSing when she populated that area.

Even the story itself wasn't terribly unbelievable. Both Russia and the US in the 1950s were studying telepathic warfare. Aliens have long been theorized to have had connections to the Mayans, given that their gods were white, and the pyramids they built sprung up in similar forms around the world, at about the same time. But yet, these things just aren't the Indiana Jones kind of stories. El Dorado is rich enough in legend and mystery that we didn't need to bring Science Fiction into the equation.

The legion of monkeys that come to our heroes' aid as Shia LeBouf leads them Tarzan-like through the trees was a little far-fetched. The fact that the skull was shown to be highly magnetic (even to non-magnetic metels like gold) seemed to come and go as it suited the story. Sometimes it effected weapons, wielded by good guys and bad guys alike. Other times, it conveniently didn't.

A lot the dialogue felt forced and unimagined, particularly a useless scene where Indy is arrested by a government agency. The entire scene does nothing but give us some exposition about how Indy was involved in WWII and got all kinds of medals and so on and so forth. This could have been easily covered in other ways and did not need a 5 minute scene.

Finally, the main antagonist, a Russian KGB scientist was two-dimensional, poorly acted, and just altogether thrown in as a villain without any depth or interest.

One thing that I got a huge kick out of, however, was Indy saying "I have a bad feeling about this". Star Wars references always make me feel warm and happy inside.

So, overall, this movie would have been fairly decent if it wasn't an Indiana Jones movie. Enjoyable action, fairly funny, however it was still very much flawed.

But honestly, anyone who says that it was the worst movie ever made, and that it ruined the Indiana Jones series and left it a broken mess should really go back and re-watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Cheap Plot Devices. For me, I still found far and away better than the second movie, even it trailed the first and third installments by just as much.

Review: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

2010-07-25T20:05:00.000-06:00

In the third installment of Indiana Jones, Spielberg comes back to the series to provide an excellent tale. We open up with a flashback to Indy's childhood where we discover what led him to become a swashbuckling archeologist, see the inspiration for his iconic fashion sense (and see why that hat is do damn important to him) and get the first glimpses of a father who's obssession would cause a distant relationship between them.

After we return to Indy's present-day life, we discover that his father (who spent his life chasing the Holy Grail) has gone missing. What ensues is a long mystery, full of secret societies, hidden clues, and a lot of great entertainment and humor.

The acting was well done. Harrison Ford, as always, pulls off his character with complexity and depth, as always, with that trademark humor that makes the Indiana Jones character such an icon. Sean Connery was perfect as Indy's father, a mix of humor, distantness, fatherly love and absent-mindedness. Their interactions were plausible, filled with just the right amount of emotion, and truly gave a new depth to the character of Indiana Jones.

The female lead, Dr Elsa Schneider, provided the first strong female lead of the series. While Marion was not a damsel in distress to be sure, Elsa was a whole level above. She was smart, quick, calm under pressure, and more than able to take care of herself.

I don't want to give away too much for the few people out there that haven't seen this yet. But it brings back what an Action/Adventure movie is supposed to be. Action, good plot, a hint of mystery, and great underlying humor. A most worthy sequel of a timeless franchise.

Review:Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

2010-07-23T12:53:00.000-06:00

This movie was hard to watch, even for a sequel. Spielberg seemed to lose everything that made the first movie great in such a short time.

The movie opens, not with an exciting archeological find, but with Jones negotiating with Chinese mobsters in a Shanghai nightclub. This whole scene, while amusing at parts, seemed more fitting for a James Bond movie than an Indiana Jones.

The other two primary characters, Short Round and Willie, were two-dimensional, shallow, and largely unnecessary. Short Round was a young orphan Jones saved and let tag along and help on his mission to deal with the mob.While perky and relatively funny, he served almost no purpose except for towards the end of the movie. Willie was a night-club singer in the club where Jones was going through his dealings. She was a bimbo, unhelpful, unproductive, uncatalystic to the story outside of providing a love interest. After the better depth and development Marion had, (and it irked me that she wasn't even mentioned, just vanished) it was disappointing to see such an uninspiring female lead.

To escape the Chinese mob, Jones (taking Willie as a hostage) boards a plane that happens to be owned by the mob. It crashes, and how does our trio save themselves? By jumping into a self-inflating raft, falling a good hundred or more feet, landing safely on snow, rocketing down a mountainside without crashing, off a cliff, dropping even farther down, yet still everyone comes out just a little damp. Um.... what? My suspension of disbelief is straining and we aren't even 20 minutes in.

We then end up in a small village who is suffering greatly because they lost their Mystical Stone of Happy Goodness, but Indy is too busy and needs to get back to the States (subtle foreshadowing is subtle....).

The group continues on and stops at a city that is known for bizarre worship and all kinds of nastiness. Oh, but they don't do that anymore....

While staying the night, we discover that they actually do continue to do bizarre sacrifices, and everyone there is evil. Oh, but their mind control can be broken by touching them with fire. Because this is clearly not an issue in a place lit brightly by torches. You seriously want to tell me that no one ever accidently burned themselves and figured this out before now?

But can Indy and Co escape this cult's vile clutches before the worst happens? To find out you'll have to sit through the crap like I did.

The entire movie is cheap special effects, and a loosely threaded storyline. Worth missing altogether unless you are really wanting to watch the entire Indy saga. But if you skip it, you're not missing much.

Review: Shrek Forever After

2010-07-20T20:34:00.000-06:00

Shrek: Forever After is the fourth and final chapter in the Shrek tale. While it, like the other sequels, failed to capture the inspiration of the first, it was still solid and enjoyable.

The story starts at the triplets' first birthday. And Shrek is suffering under being a new dad. He's frustrated that he's hailed as a hero, stuck in routine, and missing the days of being the fearsome and hated ogre he once was. So he makes an ill-fated deal with Rumplestiltskin and gets transported to a paradoxial world where nothing is how it was before. In many ways reminiscent of the second film, yet still with enough twists to make it feel a little less repetitive.

Rumpelstiltskin is a fun villain, though not any more menacing than Fairy Godmother or Prince Charming. His army of witches reminded me a lot of the third movie, but again it didn't feel like a complete repetition. The Pied Piper was certainly the coolest flute-playing bounty hunter ever. they did well with his music where it was varied both in style and tone, and was able to convey a lot when he used it to communicate.

The biggest difference between this and prior iterations of the movie trilogy was this focused less on the idea of "be yourself, no matter what" and more on the importance of love. While the former lesson is still present, much of it is more in the undertone that accepting your situation and finding happiness with it is important. More important, is Shrek learning to reprioritize his life. Learning that repetition and a loss of his "evil ogre" image is far less important than his family and friends is the heart of this story.

The enjoyability of this movie really comes down to whether or not you enjoyed Shrek 2 and 3. If you enjoyed these, then you'll enjoy this latest installment. If Shrek 2 and 3 left you feeling blah, then you probably won't enjoy this one either, as it offers no more than these.

As far as 3D, I would say not worth it. I saw it in 2D, and didn't feel like I missed anything without the 3D. So save yourself a few bucks per ticket and just see the 2D version (if it's even still playing in 3D in your area).

Review: Despicable Me

2010-07-14T13:28:00.000-06:00

Despicable Me has the perfect mix of humor and heart. It tells the story of Gru, a less than successful super-villain attempting the biggest heist in history: the moon. He adopts 3 young orphans to help him foil a rival villain, and the story revolves around how he balances these young children and his villain career.

The story, as I said, is filled with humor. From his little yellow minions that are incredibly funny, and full of sight gags, yet without being crude or over the top. Gru himself is humorous, especially with antics like using his Freeze Ray to cut to the head of the line at the Coffee Shop (come on, who of you wouldn't).

The characters are well developed, and believable within their universe. Heartfelt moments will tug at your heartstrings, perilous scenes will leave you worried (even though as a children's movie, you'll know things will work out all right) and the humor will keep you laughing.

The three orphan girls, particularly the oldest, are portrayed as reasonably complex, and are diverse in their personalities. They're enjoyable to watch, and their interactions are both fun and believable.

The only problem I had with the entire movie was the physical appearance of Gru's mother. She looked too much like the granny from Hoodwinked, and that got on my nerves. A little more originality in looks would have helped greatly.

It's hard to say more without spoiling the movie, but if you have kids, be sure to take them. If you don't have kids, be sure to go anyway. It's a great film that is a lot of fun for everyone, and well worth the cost of a ticket, even for 3D.

Review: Little Big Planet

2010-07-07T19:55:00.000-06:00

Little Big Planet has been a smash hit for a while. I finally got to play it last month, and I fell in love instantly.

You play a little sack person, navigating through the world of Little Big Planet. You go through a wide variety of zones, each with 3 main levels, and numerous bonus levels. These worlds are lumped together into themes, based around a theme, related to the location and the "Creator Curator" of that subsection of levels.

You travel through levels based in Europe, Africa, South America, Latin America, USA, Japan, India and Russia, with a final boss level. The villain is the elusive Collector, who is stealing people from the other levels.

Throughout the levels, you have Goodies to collect. These include objects found in the instance, stickers, costumes and more. You can use these to decorate yourself, your home base, and create your own levels.

The story is loosely threaded, but really, the "Story" levels are just there to highlight what you can do. Everything you see in the levels can be recreated when you build your own levels.

Building your own levels is actually quite simple. Tutorials for every aspect can either be played through linearly, or the appropriate tutorial will play the first time you try to use a new tool.

Each of the levels (including bonus levels) offered on Story mode has 3 in-game trophies associated with it: Completion, All Goodies, and No Deaths (except for bonus levels that don't end until you die). This means that even after you've beaten all the levels, you have plenty of reason to go back.

Multi-player play is very well done. On your own system, you can play with those with their own account on your system, or as a guest. They just turn on a controller, select their account (or play as a guest if they don't have an account) and they pop in at the next save point. If they don't want to play anymore, then just turn off the controller, and they will disappear, without having to leave the level. Online play is supported where you can round off your group (you can play with up to 3 other people) with strangers from online. And very nicely, any goodies collected by one person is credited to all (which is actually necessary, as there are areas labeled with the number of players you need to move through the area and collect the goodies within.)

Replay value is very high. Between gathering all the goodies (which definitely requires multiple playthroughs of levels, as you'll find stickers to trigger the switches in later levels, or later on in the level), beating every level with no deaths, and a nearly unlimited amount of community-made levels, you will never get bored.

The faults in this game are few, but they do exist. First, the ending to the Story line is cheesily stupid. It reminded me of shows like Ni Hao Kai Lan or Dora the Explorer. While I get that the story levels are just to showcase what can be done, and that this is a very family-friendly game, it still was disappointing. Also, changing depth between foreground, midground and background could get a little touchy. But no so much so as to really interfere with the game. I ran into the issue primarily when trying to get a goodie that was hidden behind something else.

The game truly lives up to it's motto: Play. Create. Share. If you enjoy gaming at all, this is a must for your collection.

Review: The Last Airbender

2010-07-06T15:21:00.000-06:00

Even if you haven't seen it yet, you've probably heard a lot of criticism about it. While it certainly had some problems, I did not think it was without its redeeming qualities.

The problems stemmed mostly from the changes M. Night Shamylan made. I expected a lot of changes; you can't condense an entire season of television (over 6 hours) into a movie without making some adjustments. And not all of the changes were bad.

Changing the pronunciations of the names. This was annoying, but considering that M. Night specifically adjusted the names to the Asian pronunciation, I was willing to overlook it. He didn't change the names themselves, and I could understand the change at least.

Changing firebending to require pre-existing fire. Not something I was thrilled with. The fact that firebenders could generate their element was part of what made them such a threatening element. However, this is a reasonable change, and doesn't really change the dynamic of the story that much.

One change that really bothered me though was Fire Lord Ozai. We see him walking around his palace, not silhouetted behind a wall of fire which made him far, far more intimidating and evil looking. He also seemed to have a much softer feeling for his son than he did in the series. That really irritated me. One of the main driving forces behind the story was how much the Fire Lord disliked his son. I would have to say that this, above all else, angered me more than anything about the movie.

Another thing that really bothered me about the movie was how underdeveloped both Sokka and Katara were. Neither of them were clearly defined, nor given real purpose throughout the movie. For me, this was just a half-step behind the changes to Fire Lord Ozai in terms of causing anger and damaging the movie. They didn't even develop why Sokka and Yue fell for each other, it was just "love at first sight" happy happy. (Oh, and they made Yue an orphan who ruled the Northern Water Tribe. A meaningless change that while it didn't affect the plot at all, was unneeded.)

However, I felt that Aang and Zuko were well developed, especially given the limited scope of Season 1 in this regard. All the important groundwork was laid for future episodes. We see Aang giving over to duty, and Zuko's anger and desperation to regain his honor. Uncle Iroh was also well portrayed, even if his character lost the goofy manner he had in the series. I was actually very happy with his development, and his change to a more adult and less jokerly character.

Finally, Aang says the Avatar is not allowed to have a family. Thanks to season 3 and knowing that Avatar Roku had a family (which, while able to be worked around, provides some very important insight to events following this revelation), this was obviously bull. It's been a while since I've watched the first season, so I don't know if Aang said it then, and the creators adjusted later, but with the series in its completion, there was no reason to put it into the movie. Aang had plenty of motivation with just the stress and pressures of being the Avatar to justify his running away.

However, it was not without its upsides. M. Night kept very close to the series, and it was cool being able to say "Omg, I remember this episode!" The scenery was beautiful, and matched, by and large, the vistas in the show. The 3D effects weren't needed, but at the same time seemed to work as the 3D in James Cameron's Avatar and simply added depth, without getting the vibe of "Omg! Look at my 3D!" (I have heard that many people had issues with the the 3D making it hard to see what was going on, but the only time I had this problem was with the Spirit Dragon that replaced Roku as Aang's mentor. But he was supposed to be hard to see. Your experience may vary.)

I also liked how he put larger chunks of description and exposition into voice over by Katara, keeping awkward dialogue to a minimum, though not completely absent.

All in all, if you go in knowing that the film is flawed, I think the enjoyment level goes up immensely over what others have said about the movie. M. Night was given the difficult task of adapting an entire television season (and a largely expositional one at that as the creators laid out the Avatar world) into a movie with a largely limited time frame. While he certainly did not hit the mark, I think it is undeserving of the hate that it has received. The largest cause of problems seemed to be that he waffled between laying out the world for new viewers, as well as trying to explain his changes to the fans. I think if he had just laid it out for new viewers, it would have been received better by the fans.

Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark

2010-07-05T09:57:00.002-06:00

It's been a long time since I've seen the Indiana Jones movies. A good 15 years, so it was really great being able to come back and watch the movies again with a fresh pair of eyes.

This movie is one of the best I've ever seen. Everything came together flawlessly. And Spielberg really pushed to bring together every element that makes a film, and gave it meaning.

The characters were believable, in their own way. Indiana Jones was typecast as Harrison Ford (Indiana is truly the Han Solo of archeology). Through the movie we see a complex character. On the one hand we see a college professor, who is passionate, but reasonably mild-mannered. On the other, we see a hardened treasure hunter, how can be quick to anger, calm under pressure, worldly, funny, driven.

His well-known outfit of rugged leather and a fedora is both recognizable, and shows the adventuresome side versus his clean cut suit that he wears as a professor. The image gives such a dichotomy to this character. And of course, Harrison Ford is great no matter what.

His counterpart and primary antagonist in the film is Belloq, a fellow archeologist. Belloq is constantly one step ahead of Jones, and takes a far more mercenary approach to archaeology. Where Jones donates all of his finds to a museum, Belloq works for the highest bidder (private investors). However, he is not inherently evil. While he may have it out for Jones, he shows concern and compassion for others. As he himself says, he is what Jones could have become, and the contrast adds depth not only to Belloq, but to Jones as well.

Major Arnold Toht is the most visible of the villains. A vicious member of the SS, he is cold, cruel, and so undeniably evil. Even the guy's eyeglasses look evil. He provides a real sense of peril and foreboding for the main characters when they fall into his clutches. Reminiscent of Vader himself, he does a great job of making the audience's skin crawl whenever he's around.

Marion Ravenwood is the film's heroine. While not a swachbuckler herself, and one that often finds herself in need of rescue, she's not your typical damsel in distress. She's clever, fiesty, fiery and altogether a strong female lead.

The plot is full mystery, twists, excitement, and intrigue. Ending in a climax of epic proportions, it leaves the viewer satisfied. Loose ends are tied up, and the adventure comes to a satisfying close.

If you are like my husband and have somehow missed seeing this movie, you absolutely have to go out and see it. You won't be disappointed.

E3: Nintendo and Sony

2010-06-28T18:23:00.000-06:00

Having E3 DVRed has been a nerd-gasming experience. So far, I've only watched two segments: the Nintendo and Sony spotlights.

Nintendo brought out the big guns, announcing a string of reboots for fan-favorite franchises, as well as some new material.

Epic Mickey -- Using the power of paint and thinner to create and destroy objects within the game, you have to guide Micky through the world of Wasteland. Most interesting is, as the creator put it, play-style matters. Whether you choose to create or destroy, engage in NPC side-quests, destroy enemies or make them friends, and even how you talk to others will affect what information they provide or withhold. This provides a lot of potential for diverse replay.

Kirby's Epic Yarn -- While I didn't see any of the vacuum-ability that is so classically Kirby, this new take on the fan favorite still looks like a blast. A textile-inspired scenery allows for using zippers to unlock hidden areas, pulling on loose threads to condense otherwise impassable terrain is awesome. All in all, it looks like it will be just as much fun as the original games, and an interesting reinvention of the franchise.

Goldeneye 007 -- A remake of the hit N64 game, this has me both excited and wary. On the one hand, while I never owned it, it was one of the few FPSs that I enjoyed playing with friends. To see it remade for the Wii has me ready to pull out my wallet and shell out for it. But, the change from Pierce Brosnan's Bond to Daniel Craig's just doesn't feel right. Goldeneye was, and in my opinion should remain, PB's. It will also be interesting to see how Nintendo manages to differentiate the game from the original, while at the same time maintain the spirit and story of the predecessor. Others have expressed a concern about whether the fun cheats from the first (such as the Big Head cheat) will be carried through.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword -- Despite some technical problems in the demonstration, this game looks like it will deliver exactly what the fans want from the first Wii Zelda game. More natural controls, inspired by Wii Resort's fencing game, will allow players a deeper level of game play. Careful design seems to be ready to take full advantage of everything the Wii has to offer. The art seems to be a cross between Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, which comes together to form something truly beautiful. While it won't be ready for the holiday season, this is definitely #1 on my wishlist.

Donkey Kong Country Returns -- For the first time in years, we get back to classic Donkey Kong without the need for bongo controllers. DKCR brings back the classic side-scroller action of the SNES hit game by Rare, complete with crazy mine car races and barrel cannons. While Nintendo has had great success in porting other side scrollers to 3D (Mario), they seem to have chosen to keep DK in its classic form rather than trying to make a 3D adventure. Personally, it's a choice I fully agree with. DKCR also introduces a couple of new features. First, while not thouroughly demonstrated, the demo showed our primate compadres with limited health bars. Considering the number of times I had to restart a level due to a jump intending to kill a croc that was mis-timed by a quarter of a second, I'm all for this. Keeping it still tightly limited keeps the game challenging and maintains the old feel, but will hopefully result in less swearing at my television. The second feature is the ability for Diddy to piggy-back on Donkey. Nintendo pointed this out as a way for more experienced players to help less-experienced friends through difficult patches. A great idea, and one that should make playing with your younger sibling, parents, or spouse a little less frustrating in certain areas.

Other games Nintendo highlighted included Metroid: Other M, Wii Party and Kid Icarus (3DS). Nintendo sent a message this year saying "Remember how utterly awesome being a Nintendo player was in the 80s and early 90s? Well, it's all back, better than ever." Nintendo has shown that they are just as pleasing to hardcore gamers as either of the other two competitors (PS3 and XBox 360). Just because a game isn't rated M with uber-realistic graphics doesn't mean it won't provide a hardcore experience.

Nintendo, to show that they aren't just coasting on past successes, also officially unveiled the 3DS that was announced earlier this year. Handheld 3D, without the need for goofy glasses. The ability to perfectly scale the depth to fit your visual comfort and preference, take and share 3D photos, and a new and improved wireless connectivity system that will allow for data sharing even while playing other games. A truly giant leap forward for Nintendo, even as impressive as the DSi is.

Nintendo brought an absolute nerd-gasm to E3, while at the same time, proving that they are not the underdogs they are so often portrayed as. They are still a juggernaut of the industry, and will remain a strong fixture, and competitior, for quite some time.

Sony's presentatation almost seemed to fall flat following Nintendo's. Sony focused a little less on the games, and more on their two new technological advances.

First was their jump on 3D gaming.With Sony being the manufactuer of the new 3D televisions, it was obvious that the PS3 would be the first to offer 3D gaming. But, Sony took the right route with it. The upgrade to the software for the PS3 is patched in for free. All games (Killzone 3 being the focus of Sony's 3D segment) will be fully compatible with either 3D or 2D, so if and when you upgrade your television, there is no need to upgrade your games, and no reason not to buy the new 3D compatible games if you don't have the television.

Their next was obviously the Move. Again, Sony impressed me with their forethought here. The sensor for the move is the PS Eye, which allows those that already have the Eye to only buy the necessary controllers, while new Eye owners will be getting a piece of equipment that does more than work with their Move.

The biggest surprise of their presentation however, was the announcement that Portal 2 would be coming to the PS3. Given the ranting that Valve CEO Gabe Newell gave the PS3 in 2007, and despite being a big Nintendo fan, Sony has managed to win him over and score the release of Portal 2 for Sony's console. While I may not know what has changed with the PS3 to make Newell reconsider, it's clear in the past 3 years they have made improvements. Newell made no secret of his past statements, and even turned to a bit of humor. A big coup for Sony, and if it wasn't just money (which I doubt) it shows Sony's commitment to constantly improving.

Though personally, I'll probably buy it on the PC. Nothing wrong with Sony, but Portal can get crazy enough with requiring precisely aimed shots, and I'd rather do that with the PC mouse.

The last bit was given as a small segment, but involves a new subsciption plan for the Playstation Network. Again, I think Sony is taking the right path with this one. Unlike XBox, who requries a subscription for most of their network features, Sony is leaving the current functionality of the system intact, and will remain free of charge. But, for the more hardcore gamers who want in on beta testing, exclusive game trailers, and some free goodies for their Playstation Home, the new subscription will offer that kind of material.

Now let's look at the upcoming games that have me particularly excited.

Sorcery -- A great fantasy adventure, complete with fun spell combos is slated for next year. Making full use of the Move, players will be able to use the Move to aim attacks, drink potions by actually miming it with the Move, and looks like like all around fun.

Medal of Honor -- The incredible FPS is back. The graphics look amazing; there was more than once where I was almost unsure if I was looking at live-action footage. Unlike previous installations of the game, this one takes the player out of WWII and puts them into the current Afghanistan war. Developed closely with the US Military to ensure both authenticity and sensitivity, this promises to provide a really in-depth and immersive experience.

Twisted Metal -- This game is Mario Kart on steroids. With crazy mulitplayer modes, including a form of capture the flag where you grab the opposite factions leader and then feed them to a catapult to hit a steel effigy, this game promises an insane, dark twist to similar games.

The Sony PS3 TV spokesman (I love him) had something to say, however, that rings so true.

"Gaming is having a ridiculously large TV in a one bedroom aparatment.Gaming is staying up until 3 in the morning to get a trophy that isn't real... but is. We may pledge our fanboy allegience to different flags. But we all worship the same god. That god is Gaming, and may he reign forever."

So often we all get so so hung up in which console is better, which company caters more or less to the hardcore or casual, that we lose sight of the fact that there can be room in our hearts for all of them.

So let's get out there and play some mother fu---ing games!

Review: Get HIm To The Greek

2010-06-07T13:17:00.001-06:00

Get Him to the Greek was a great comedy, with a reasonably original plot (compared to some of the more staple-fare comedies that have been out lately).

The two stars, Russell Brand and Jonah Hill, are what really made the film work. Jonah Hill plays the lovable, soft-spoken and naive intern. Russell Brand plays... well he may have just as well been playing himself. He's an interesting kind of guy. I cannot think of two other actors that could have filled these two roles as well.

Even Sean "P. Diddy" Combs puts in a great performance as Sergio, CEO of Pinnacle Records.

Their misadventures through New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles were riotous. I don't want to give too much away, but offers of "hairy-oke", a failed attempt at locating heroin, sprinkled with a few touching moments of Aldous attempting to reconnect with people from his past to fill the empty void in his life, gave itself to a fun and enjoyable movie.

This movie, produced by Judd Apatow, was of the same caliber and quality of most of his other movies. The humor was solid, if sometimes crude. The characters were all well-developed and well-portrayed. The pace of the movie was steady throughout. And most importantly, it explained the necessity of fuzzy walls.

Again, Russell Brand puts out a perfect performance. Sexy, British, and full of psychotic energy, is character is fun, believable, and has just enough of a dark side to make him feel real and not just a running, two-dimensional gag.

With the exception of the horrifically offensive "African Child" (whose music video opens the film, and will have you both squirming uncomfortably even while you're hating yourself for laughing at the absurdity of the song and video. Don't worry, you're supposed to feel this way.) Aldous Snow's (Russell Brand) band actually had some pretty catchy music. It's not often I consider buying film soundtracks, but this is definitely a possible iTunes download later on. My personal favorite was the song "Bangers, Beans and Mash".

My only real complaint with the movie was my favorite clips from the trailers didn't make the final cut. (Russell Brand riding nude in a power wheels loudly proclaiming "I'm a motorist!" and the early morning jogging.)

If you like movies like Knocked Up, then you'll definitely get a kick out of this movie. It might not be "The Hangover", but it was still tremendous fun and one of the better comedies I've seen. Well worth the price of a ticket.

WoW: A Guide to Dungeon Leveling

2010-06-06T23:06:00.002-06:00

With WoW's Dungeon Finder feature, it's now possible to level solely through dungeon play. Considering my love, and extensive experience, leveling this way, I figured I'd write a guide for those that may want to use this method, and use it effectively.

Heroic Halls of Lightning with my super-shiny UI

Step 1: Which kind of player are you?
There are two types of levelers for our intents and purposes. Picking which one you are can have an effect on later choices.

The first type is The Maximizer. This is ideal if you have a limited amount of time to play, and you'll be pushing hard to hit level 80. This is when you spend any queue time you have to quest and play your character.

The second type is The AFKer. This is ideal if you have long times to play, and plan on doing other things while you're waiting in queue. Whether grinding professions, chatting with friends, or going AFK completely to do other things.

The AFKer is ideal for people who can play all day but have things to do around the house. Maybe you have cleaning you need to do. Maybe you're 82% of the way through your novel and really shouldn't be playing but want to find a balance between working and playing.

This method works well for that. I am actually more productive using this method than I am just working straight through. It's energizing knowing that fun is just around the corner.

Though be warned: if you miss your queue you'll have to start your wait all over. Play close attention to the estimated wait time and mouse over the minimap icon to see if the icons representing your prospective group members have started turning from black-and-white to color. Fortunately the DPS fill in a couple of minutes before you get a full group, so stay close to the computer at this point.

*NOTE* If you already know what alt you're wanting to level, you can skip the next couple steps. But, if you're still unsure, read on.

Step 2: Choose Your Role
Tank:
Tanking can be a lot of fun. But with it comes a lot of possible frustration. You will be blamed for a lot of stuff that's not your fault. The nice thing is you can always just drop the group. You'll get a 30 minute debuff preventing you from queuing up immediately, but better than playing with assholes.

Queue times will be very short for you. Typically less than a minute. This makes it great if you want to level quickly. But, if you're the AFKer type and plan on trying to balance chores and WoW it's not the greatest choice since you'll never get away for more than a minute or two.

Healers:
Healers are a different challenge. The group relies on you to keep them alive during their fuck-ups.

Though to be honest, I personally find it a little dull. But it is a break from being a mindless dps.

Healers have a medium queue time. Longer than tanks, but typically shorter than DPS. It's up to you to see how that fits in with either questing or doing other things while waiting. My usual average is about 15-20 mins (as compared to 20-30 mins for my DPS).

Healing as a priest can get a little dull.

DPS:
DPS is arguably the easiest of all the roles. All you do is kill the enemies. You don't have to worry about holding aggro, keeping people alive, or even really paying that much attention to the world around you. You just focus on what you're doing, and not worry about being responsible for other people.

In many ways, this can make it the most fun role to play. Little responsibility, and who doesn't like seeing big numbers on the DPS meters? However, you are also the most replaceable, and therefore less likely to be cut slack if you're screwing up. You'll also be looking at the longest queues. I usually see about 20-30 minutes, but I've had it get as high as 45 minutes for a single queue.

*Note* Consider whether you'll be leveling with a friend or friends. This can have a lot of benefits. You get someone whose skill level you already know. You can have more fun because you're playing with someone you know. Finally, if you're a group of 3 or more, you get majority on the Vote-To-Kick feature. This can keep you safe from those that are kick-happy and try to kick anyone who they don't believe is uber-leet. It also allows you to guarantee kicking someone out if they are just unbearable to play with. And if you go with at least a tank and a healer, you will find groups incredibly fast (i.e. instant).

If you're leveling solo, you might want to be beware of these premade groups. A lot of them tend to use it as carte blanch to run their mouths and insult everybody that isn't in their premade group. Just a word of warning.

The reason this is important to consider now is that if you haven't settled on a role, but you know your buddy is dying to be a tank, rolling a second one isn't going to do much for leveling together. On the flip side, if you know your friends don't want to tank, but you're willing to try, you can shorten the queue times for your entire group.

Step 3: Choose Your Class

This step can be a lot easier once you choose your role.

Tanks: Warriors, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights (if available to you)
Healers: Priests, Druids, Paladins, Shaman

Every class has a DPS spec, so this is completely up to you. Consider what you haven't tried and what sounds fun. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, as it falls almost completely to personal choice. The pros and cons of each class could fill up a post in and of themselves, so I'm going to leave this short. Just do what interests you.

Step 4: Prepare Yourself

This is a big step, so I'm going to break it up a little bit.

4.1: Get Your Gear

If available to you (i.e. you have a high level, preferably 80, character on the same server. These items can be mailed cross-faction.), you're going to want to grab some Bind-on-Account (BoA) heirloom gear, in particular a chest piece and a shoulder piece as these provide +10% experience gained each. These can be obtained from your faction's Emblem of Heroism vendor in Dalaran for 40 emblems per piece, or from the Argent Crusader vendor at the Argent Tournament for 60 Champion's Seals per piece.

There are also shoulders available from the Wintergrasp vendor for 200 Stone Keeper's Shards. These are slightly inferior to the ones sold by the other vendors as some of their stat budget is spent on resilience. But this difference is negligible.

There is also a BoA ring that offers an additional +5% experience gained, but this is only available by winning the Kalu'ak Fishing Tournament. As with the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Derby, there is only one winner per server per week. So I wouldn't wait around on that piece. If you can get it though, great.

You can get BoA gear for most of your character's equipment slots. All BoA will scale with your level, and is roughly on par with anything you'll get in the dungeons. However, only the chest and shoulder pieces grant extra XP, and should therefore be your first priority. I wouldn't worry too much about other pieces unless you have a ton of currency to burn.

A shot of the queue information available from mousing over the minimap icon. When you reach the head of the queue, those greyed out icons will fill as you are matched with potential group members. Note that it will give you the time in queue, and if available, the average wait time.

4.2: Get Your Addons

There are thousands of addons out there. But there are three in particular I find useful for dungeon leveling.

Altoholic is a great tool for managing multiple alts. Leveling multiple characters at once allows you to keep one gaining rested experience in an inn or capital city (which grants 200% XP to kills, and stacks with BoA gear). Rested XP is king. Given that the vast, vast majority of XP you'll be gaining is from kills, this cuts your leveling time in half. You can see which of your characters has the most rested XP to burn, what they have equipped, and if they have BoA gear waiting in the mail (usually, it only records a character's mail when you visit the mailbox on that character. But mailing items to your own characters gets recorded when it's sent.)

Omen Threat Meter allows you to view the amount of aggro you have on an enemy in comparison with everyone else. This is important as it can help you hold aggro if you're a tank, or not grab aggro if you're not. Keep an eye on it, and be aware of where you are relative to others. WoW offers an in-game equivalent, but I find it lacking in comparison.

Atlasloot Enhanced is great for seeing what gear is available in each dungeon. It allows you to also maintain wishlists for your character. You can maintain more than one if you want alternate sets, or lump everything into one.

Now, as I said, there are thousands of addons out there. I would suggest taking some time and browsing through them. You'll find many that are class and role specific that catch your interest.

4.3: Learn About Your Class and Role
Take a few minutes and learn a little about your toon and what your toon will be doing. You don't have to become an expert, but perusing some standard specs, acquainting yourself with abilities (particularly things like buffs, crowd control, and effects to get rid of debuffs and fears), and knowing what your stat priority is will go a long ways towards making you better at your character from the get-go.

Now, you don't have to be perfect, and certainly feel free to explore your own spec ideas and what not. But the better idea you have about what you're doing will help you from getting the wrong gear or being a detriment to your group.

Playing in a group can be far different from playing solo. Buffs, aggro management and other synergy effects become very important. Speccing for group play can be vaguely different as well. By finding out which talents are important for group play and why will help you make better choices.

4.4 Choose Your Professions
Thanks to the Blue Ink Alchemist for helping me in this consideration.

Now, if you have other characters on the server and gold is not a major issue, choose your professions however you see fit by any method or strategy you would use for any alt, regardless of leveling method.

But, if gold is an issue for you (such as not having a high-level character on the server to pay your bills) then you may want to consider Tailoring (even if you don't wear cloth) and Enchanting. While conventional wisdom is that the 3 gathering professions are the fastest money-makers, nodes and skinnable mobs are far more rare in instances than they are in the world at large.

However, the majority mobs in dungeons have a chance to drop cloth. As an Enchanter, you can disenchant both what you make, and unwanted gear in the dungeon (though you aren't guaranteed what you DE in dungeons.) So these are more likely to be profitable than other professions, and require less of an investment to level.

You may want to click for the larger image. Notice the new Disenchant button on the lower right. Because this character can use the item, the Need button is available. If my character could not use it (whether due to class restriction, or certain stats available), the button would be greyed out. Hovering over the button will tell you why you can't roll on it.

Step 5: Know The Etiquette and Expectations

Loot in dungeons is given out via the revamped Need vs Greed method. While the restrictions are far less stringent at low levels, it does prevent you from rolling need on most items not designed for your class. So if you're a druid that wants that nice pair of cloth pants... tough.

Some people will ask if they can get items that you win (cross-server trades are allowed on BoP gear while in a dungeon, and only to those that were eligible for loot from that boss). This is up to you. They may or may not throw a fit if you don't give it to them. If you don't need the item, you may want to be nice and give it up. Feel free to ask too, if there are items you would like that you can't roll need on, but remember it's their choice and generosity to give it to you. You don't have rights on it.

Another key element about looting is knowing that many people hold the idea of Main Spec before Off Spec to be as sacrosanct and inviolable as holy writ. When rolling on gear for a spec that you are not currently using in the dungeon, be aware of others in your group and whether they may want that particular item for their Main Spec. This is where Atlasloot, or at least a handwritten form of list, can do a lot of good, as you can specify which Off Spec pieces you're looking for at the start of the run, and see if there are any objections. Most people won't object you rolling Need if they don't need it themselves.

However, there are those that don't believe this and will roll on gear anyways. Don't be too surprised if that Death Knight steals that tanking sword from from your Paladin. It happens, just be prepared.

If you've never run a dungeon before, or are running in a role you're unfamiliar with, tell people. Your group will be much more forgiving and helpful if you let them know beforehand you're new to something. Though if you're a tank and you've never run a certain dungeon before, I suggest running it as a different role to familiarize yourself with the dungeon prior to trying to tank it.

Finally, particularly if you are the tank and therefore set the pace for the dungeon, be aware of your party members. Watch their mana and stop periodically to let them drink. Many players may also need items dropped by optional bosses. Ask before you skip them, or if you're going in for a quick run and plan on only hitting the bosses you want to do, make it clear at the beginning of the run. Some people may get pissed off, but at least you gave them fair warning.

Step 6: To Random, Or Not To Random

With the dungeon finder, you have the option of choosing a completely random dungeon, or select specific ones to queue for. Up until you are able to queue for random Northrend dungeons (level 69), the rewards for running a random dungeon is a Satchel of Helpful Goods (you get one blue piece of gear that may, or may not, actually be helpful) and a pithy amount of additional money and experience. Given that the gear you get is almost more likely to be useless to you than otherwise, you may want to consider a better plan for your dungeon experience.

Selecting specific dungeons

If you follow the suggestion to keep a "Wishlist" of gear you need from each dungeon available to you (whether through a hand-written list, or through utilizing an addon like Atlasloot), you can decide which dungeons will be the most productive for you to queue for. I suggest only queuing for low-level random dungeons if you need gear from all the dungeons available to you, or if you need gear from none of them, and you don't have any labeled in orange (signifying higher level, thus more XP). This way, you're running dungeons you actually need something out of, rather than blowing time in a dungeon that won't give you anything, and only randoming when all dungeons have something for you.

This is likely to increase your queue time, however. So keep that in mind. The benefit is that by only running dungeons you need, you're more likely to get all the gear you're looking for before you level out of running that dungeon, which will give you better performance.

I also suggest that as soon as you hit 58 or 68, you start on Burning Crusade and Northrend dungeons respectively. You will get much higher experience, and far better gear (even if you might not be able to use it for a couple of levels, you'll get a headstart). With the exception of tanks (and even then...) gear doesn't matter much until you hit 80 anyways, so don't spend a whole lot of time clearing out every dungeon of gear from the prior game version. Queues for borderline dungeons will be much longer anyways.

Once you hit 69, you should make your first dungeon of the day random you will receive 2 Emblems of Triumph, which once you reach 80 can get you Tier 9 gear and give you a good start on gearing out your toon for endgame.

Two Emblems a day keeps the gearing woes away.

There it is. Your guide to making dungeon leveling as painless as possible.

Review: Assassin's Creed

2010-06-05T12:52:00.000-06:00

Assassin's Creed was an interesting play that kept me involved, intrigued, and interested over the course of the 7 months it took me to beat it. (Note, the long play time says nothing about the game, and a lot about my ridiculously busy schedule.)

I loved the gameplay. Running up walls, leapfrogging across scaffolds and flinging knives at sentries was amazingly fun. The story relating to the past (where you play as Altair) was full of mystery, difficulty, and a bit of suspense. Very well crafted overall.

Choice was also a key element of the game. You could pick what order you did the assassinations in (at least, for each group of missions) and which investigations one performs. The latter was particularly nice, particularly since I sucked at the stealth assassination investigations.

Trasitioning from the past to the present felt a bit choppy and sudden. While it is meant to feel this way (just as Desmond would feel being drawn out of the Animas), I felt it could have been handled differently. As it was, it felt bulky.

While the second story of Desmond was just as full of mystery and intrigue as Altair's, I sometimes felt like it was trying to be two stories in one. While this wasn't altogether bad, I did occasionally feel bogged down trying to puzzle through two separate mysteries.

I think a better tether between the stories would have helped me a lot. As it was, the rare amount of play time that I got made me forget when I was due to get pulled from the Animas. While the zone-loading and execution scenes tied you to the Animas itself, I never felt any connection to the present. Some stronger tether between the two to help keep the player conscious of both ends of the story would have been a positive change for me.

The largest problem I had with the game was the script. It was a little cheesy, a little melodramatic. Once, my husband was in the room where I was playing, and he sarcastically quipped off a response to one of the characters that was as predictable and cheesy as he could think of. As if on cue, Altair repeated it word for word.

Assassin's Creed has fallen into the trap that many games seem to fall in to: Having to Tell, instead of Show. In a book, or even a movie, it's easier to convey a lot of back information to a character via cutting over to a different character. But this story focuses on just the one character, so you don't really get a chance to convey information except to have him say it as exposition.

Particularly when Altair was puzzling through the mystery of the Templar secrets, he would feel to just ramble, restating things for emphasis, and ladling exposition of plot and his thoughts onto the player. These were done in awkward feeling dialogues with other members of the Creed.

I think that was what really bothered me. Not only was there a lot of spoken exposition, but it was done chunky, unnatural dialogue, when if it had to be done at all, may have felt less chunky if it came as a voice-over of an internal monologue.

A couple of minor problems that I had were gameplay based. First of all, I know that tearing down a street at a dead run is not the easiest way to blend in. But walking everywhere sometimes felt painfully slow.

Accomplishing side-objectives, such as saving citizens from abuse, could easily become overwhelming if a patrol happened to walk by. While finding creative ways to bypass this problem (or simply killing every enemy in sight) was definitely a welcome challenge to the game, the reward felt too small. I rarely really had need to run through the vigilante groups that would congregate there to escape pursuit. It wasn't long before I gave up saving these innocents.

Another irritant were the designed hindrances. Just as there were vigilantes and hiding places to help you, there were hindrances to your movement as well. These came in the form of beggars and drunks/crazies. However, for me, these quickly went from hindrance to just flat annoying. Yes, beggars tend to be whiny. But hearing a croaking, sing-song voice crying "My family is sick and [i]dying[/i]" every other block really ground on my nerves. And being completely unable to navigate certain areas (always right where I had to go, of course) due to being shoved around by the drunks and crazies was also very frustrating. A few times, I even got irritated enough to just take the hit to my "synchronization" bar and knife them.

But hey, that's just me.

Another annoyance was the requirement to find a designated hiding place to lose pursuers. While that sounds good on paper, where was more than once when I was fleeing pursuit, and the aggro indicator showed that I was out of sight of my pursuers. I would, while out of sight, run over several rooftops, dash around several corners and really should have lost pursuit, regardless of getting into an "approved" hiding place. I understand they wanted the mechanics to be to hide and not just dash around mindlessly, but there comes a point where it's like... really?

The last minor annoyance was that in-game achievements don't exist for the PS3 version. They weren't even patched in later as they were with the XBox. This made things like killing all 60 Templars and gathering the various flags in each zone feel more pointless.

Achievements may not mean much, but yes, they do make me feel more productive about wasting my time on sidequests.

One thing that I felt really stood out with the game was the integration of the HUD with the story. As gamers, we have come to accept things like arbitrary health bars that grow as tasks are accomplished, areas being locked from access, and other such information as part of the game, despite them really being something more intangible.

But, Assassin's Creed's choice to instead incorporate that HUD into the story was something I enjoyed. Instead of a health bar, you get a "Synchronization Bar". It functions, and serves the same purpose, as a health bar, but instead you are taking the approach that you are losing the path that your ancestor took.

Given that you are looking at events that have already occurred, it helps to make a player's death seem more realistic in that you don't through off the space-time continuum by creating a paradox, you just fell out of synch with your ancestor. This also allowed the player to be penalized for actions like killing innocents without it feeling like a contrivance. ("Wait, if I kill someone, how does that damage me?")

All in all, it just made much of the necessary mechanics feel more innate to the story rather than something outside of the game world.

But, cheesy script and annoying beggars aside, the game was enjoyable from beginning to end. The mysteries were engaging, the gameplay was well executed over all. The assassinations scaled well, requiring greater cunning and planning than previous executions, requiring the player to fine tune their strategy.

A truly fun game, and one that I'll likely play through again.

WoW: A Love Story

2010-06-04T14:51:00.001-06:00

With both The Blue Ink Alchemist and Epixaricacy posting about the upcoming changes in Cataclysm a couple weeks ago, I thought I'd post my own thoughts on the game that has taken the world by storm. I have been a consistent player since I started in late 2006. I remember when Mend Pet was channeled, the ogres and Elder Crockolisks in Stranglethorn Vale were elite, and when having your epic flyer was a major mark of leetness.

Despite much of the old world dying when BC came out, I was fortunate to roll on a server (via blind choice) that had only been open for a month.So leveling and finding level-appropriate groups for everything up till level 58 was no problem.

So, I've been around a while. I've ridden out through buffs, nerfs, lag and server downtime. I just wanted to share what I do and don't like about where the game is, and where the game is going. I haven't looked too heavily at the changes, due to a combination of time constraints, and knowing that until the beta starts to draw to a close, nothing is really reliable (anyone remember dance studios?).

What I Like
The Dungeon Finder
This feature is why I still play. Otherwise, when I first quit raiding back in August, I would have probably faded off the game. I love questing. I really do. It's peaceful, it's fun, and I really have always enjoyed that aspect of the game. But I'm also an altoholic. So I've done a lot of questing. And once you start to get into the 30s and 40s, areas to really get some good questing done is sparse. It gets even worse when you hit the Outlands and Northrend because they have a much more linear track to the zones. Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Wore out the t-shirt.

Dungeons was something I really loved though, and now I could go back to doing them with an at-level group. After I started playing on a new realm (transferring my main and my highest level alt at the time and rerolling the rest) that was a day-one server, finding dungeon groups for things like Zul Farrak, Blackfathom Deeps, and best of all, Dire Maul, Scholomance and Stratholme (which I didn't get to do at-level on my main with Outlands beckoning anyone at that level away).

Now I can completely dungeon-level my alts, and I don't even have to leave a capital city. I can level professions, play the auction house, or better yet, go do something else entirely. It's the norm for me to use my average 20 minute wait time to work on homework, clean the house, make phone calls, so on and so forth. This helps to ease my conscious about how much I play. Yeah, I may blow 2 hours on WoW, but in that same time, I've cleaned most of the apartment, or finished a homework assignment, or something.

I've personally also connected better with people and helped them out. Especially lower level hunters. I've run into hunters using spell power gear, defense gear, and had specs that would make most experienced hunters cry. I politely whisper them, and would offer my advice. While some blew me off, many were very grateful for the help. I haven't been able to do that on my own realm. No reason for lower levels to group up and connect.

I've even found it more enjoyable on my 80s. Yes, I can and have found pugs on my own server. But most players have a guild they run with, so you get a lot of alts and players that aren't very good. I have no problem playing with the less skilled, but you get some people how are really.... special. Now, I run with a wide variety of people. Some groups are chatty, others aren't. But, I don't have to bark in trade forever, and I don't have to listen to people demanding a 5k GearScore to run the easiest heroics. And I can go do my dailies while I wait instead of being tethered to Trade Chat.

It may decrease the contact pool I have on my own server, but all in all, it's a feature that I couldn't live without.

Raiding
This is something that will appear in the negative column as well, but for now I'm going to focus on what I like about it.

In Burning Crusade, pugs may have been possible, but they were far from the norm. And setting up a pug for Mount Hyjal or Black Temple was usually laughed off by everyone else. At least on my server, you didn't even pug individual spots. If you were short a person, you might pull in a friend, or someone from another well-respected guild, but you didn't just grab someone off the street, as it were. You canceled the raid. Now, pugs are plentiful for even end-game raids.

While the change to how buffs stack made a lot of people angry due to feeling like what made their class special was being given to everyone else. But really, all it did was cut down the restrictions for people to get into raids without worrying about overloading on a certain class, or fretting over class makeup. It makes putting together a raid a much easier task.

The addition of Heroic modes for raids brought in a new dynamic that attempted to balance the needs of the casual players and the hardcore. It had its downside, but that will be covered in the next section as well.

The change to badges to allow the purchase of gear one tier behind current content has the benefit of allowing players who take a short-term break to catch up, and new players to quickly move into the current content.

Dailies
Dailies are another double-edged sword. While I'll cover their downsides later, the bonus is that it provides a steady and reliable stream of reputation and gold without long bouts of farming and grinding.

Acheivements
These are fun ways to mark things done in the game. Besides the ones for raiding and pvp, it gives something to work on. It can keep up interest in a character when the grind gets too bland. Popping around looking for rare spawns, fishing for rare fish, running old dungeons for fun. It's really hit the OCD "gotta catch 'em all" side of my personality.

What I Don't Like
The Players
The number one thing I don't like about the game is the other players. The influx of casual players brought with them a rash of lazyness, greed, and self-entitlement. People cry over the stupidest things. Tanks and healers, because they are harder to find than DPS, believe they have a lock on whatever loot they want. And if they don't get it, they quit in a huff. Or worse, pull an entire room to attempt to kill the offending player.

If I go into a dungeon, and I say that I'm looking for gear for my tank set, the tank gets all huffy. The expectation is that I should have to spend several hundred gold to buy pieces to start tanking and have them all upgraded in a week. Now, to me at least, this is a total waste. I'd rather just build up my set through the dungeons in the first place. Most of the time this isn't a problem. Either the tank doesn't need any gear, or they are polite enough to be reasonable. A simple "Hey, if you could pass on ______ because I've been farming for that" is enough for me to give over to them.

But when the tank is rude, can't hold aggro over a paper bag, or takes hits like a clothie, then I'm not going to be nice. I'm not going to give in. And since many of my alts are currently running Outlands dungeons where gear doesn't matter and main-spec items will be upgraded in a week anyways, I see no reason not to roll on a few offset pieces. I'm usually a generous person overall, but I get tired of the self-entitlement and whining.

A couple cases to make my point: First, I was running a dungeon in Outlands on my warlock (note that I'm a cloth wearer here) and the druid healer (who wears leather) wanted a drop that I rolled need on. I pointed on that the piece was very good for me, and that the gear was more designed for me since it was cloth. They pitched a fit claiming that as the healer, they were clearly more entitled to get whatever they wanted over a lowly DPS. When I didn't give in, they quit the group in a huff.

Second, I was playing another Outlands dungeon on my enhancement shaman (who I'd been working on a healer set for) and a leather caster helm dropped. I won the greed roll. I was pretty thrilled as this was the last piece I needed. I'd been looking for a helm for a long time. The healer (also a shaman) demanded I hand it over. I pointed out that I won the greed roll fair and square, and that it was only a minor upgrade for him while it completed a set for me. The healer left in a huff, and the tank then proceeded to pull the entire room in an attempt to kill the rest of the group and "punish" me.

It's a game. Throwing a temper tantrum because you don't get what you want is pathetic. I've lost many rolls on loot I wanted. I don't cry about it. The item, or something better, will drop again.

Dailies
The problem with dailies is that it removed a lot of need to work your professions for money. As a result, the market on crafted items has crashed, and the cost of gathered goods was sky high for a long time. They can be painfully repetitive at times, and can eat up a lot of time. The high influx of easy gold has also caused the in-game economy to flip out and become horribly skewed. Low-level items sell for massive amounts of money because players with an 80 could pay for these items for these alts, but it made it difficult for new players, or players rerolling on a separate server.

The End-Game Rush
While alleviated slightly by the new dungeon-finder mechanic, older content gets completely brushed over. If you try to find a group to clear Naxxramas, you get a chorus of "Why bother? Just grind dungeons for a day and jump into the new content." Most of the old-world is a barren wasteland. I have gone for days questing and never seen more than one other person in the entire zone. Content at x-pac cut offs are particularly hard to find groups for. Stratholme, Outlands heroics. These are almost never run because you can get far better gear in the later content.

This leads to a mad dash to 80 and then straight into end-game with little time to stop and smell the roses with people. I remember leveling my first toon, and I was in a guild that was all about the same level as me. We ran dungeons on a regular basis, quested together, and it was a fun and social environment. While we were all in a hurry to reach end game, we at least got to enjoy the game in its entirety.

The Dungeon-Finder
The dungeon finder is a great tool, and I absolutely love it for a variety of reasons. But the lack of socialization on my own server can be a hindrance. Especially on my 80s when I can't call on those good tanks and healers to put together a good raid pug.

The gear checking it performs also leaves a lot to be desired. It takes into account the level of all your gear, not the gear you have for the role you queued for. I've had tanks that get 2-shot by trash, and when the healer quits due to the impossibility of the situation, and the terri-bad tank requeues as a tank, it's ridiculous. While the requirements to tank or be a healer doesn't have to be overly stringent. But something would be nice. Enough so that they can actually tank the instance will be nice. Hopefully, in Cataclysm, Blizzard's removal of defense rating and the streamlining of their mechanics should help a lot.

The Complexity
Something they seem to be addressing in Cataclysm is the over-complexity of the current stat system. The conversion ratios, stat balancing and so on has gotten out of control. Max your hit, then hit a magical amount of armor penetration, but if you're MM or Survival make sure you stack agility, but if you're BM or a certain type of MM, stack attack power and so on and so forth. It's ridiculous. When you have to rely on spreadsheets to decide between two pieces of gear, things are too complex.

Raiding
Raiding can be crazy complex. Fights are gimmicky to the point of frustration. If just one person misses a beat, it wipes the entire raid. it gets frustrating. Not to mention tiresome to have to watch two or three videos of a fight just to see a strategy before even setting foot in the instance. Followed by weeks of attempts on the same bosses, on 10 man and 25 man, normal and heroic. It gets tiring and leads to a quick burn out.

Tedium
Leveling, PvP, and even a lot of the PvE instances turns into one thing: repetition. Go kill 20 wolves. Great, now go kill 20 Orcs. Run flags around battlegrounds. Farm instances for drops, farm for rep. Grind. Grind. Grind. There's little difference. Little change. After a while it all just starts to run together, and interest in the game can wane. A more in depth approach would have been nice.

Overall, this is, despite its flaws, a delicious game. The things I don't like are far outweighed by the positives. and I keep coming back for more. So far, no other MMO has caught my attention. They never seem to offer anything new, different, or anything worth leaving WoW for. BioWare's Old Republic will likely tempt me away.

The Importance of Character

2010-05-17T00:54:00.000-06:00

Characters. They are what make a story worth reading. They are what make us emotionally invested. Without them, there usually is no story.

The importance of character came up when my husband and I were discussing Castle. What makes Castle work is the characters. If Caslte wasn't a mischievous man with the sense of humor of a 12-yr old and an ego the size of Manhattan and Beckett wasn't a no-nonsense, driven, strong woman, the show would be a flop. It would be a pale imitation of Law & Order and other crime procedurals currently on the air.

Really no story is complete without characters. And so often, they are passed over by writers, actors and even audiences. Too often characters are cliche, two-dimensional and uninspired. Even some of my favorite shows are suffering from a lack of growth and development.

It is incumbent upon the writer to make sure that their characters continue to be interesting and never stagnant. This is something that too few writers take seriosuly anymore.

If you're a writer, make sure you tend to the needs of your characters. Make them interesting. Most importnatly, make them real.

David Eddings was a master at this. His powerful wizard, his Gandalf if you will, was respected throughout the world, and a drunk, womanizing thief that isn't above murdering someone who is inconvenient. All of his characters were similarly flawed. It them fun. It made them real.

Go forth, then. And write characters that are real. Not just characters that get the job done.

Dungeons & Dragons: A First Timer's Experience

2010-05-16T02:07:00.000-06:00

Today was a special day in any gaming nerd's life. I played my first Dungeons & Dragons game. Last night was spent pouring over my character sheet, trying to make sure I got my character just right.

Picking my race/class was a real challenge. I wanted something that I was fairly familiar with. I originally thought about an elven ranger (my main in WoW, and an easy favorite). But I've been there, done that. I finally settled on an Eladrin wizard.

Though I will admit the Player's Handbook 4th Edition was a little hard to understand for a first-timer. A lot of the phrasing the editors seemed to take for-granted. There was a lot of sections that described a particular value, but didn't clearly talk about where to put it.

However, Wizards of the Coast has put a wonderful character builder program on their website that helps noobs like me put it all together in a way that is easy to understand, and gets you out the door with a workable character.

As a fan of RPGs (namely WoW and Dragon Age: Origins) it was truly fascinating to see the mother of them all, and recognize how much these modern games draw from this paragon of gaming.

As far as the actual game went, my little Leshanna did quite well, and I'm slowly becoming comfortable with tabletop gaming. A truly great experience, and one that I'm only sorry that I've waited this long to check out.

My New Favorite "Writer"

2010-05-14T02:26:00.005-06:00

I have found a new writer I'm absolutely in love with. Too bad he's not real.

Castle is ABC's new hit crime show that debuted last year mid-season. Richard Castle is a wealthy best-selling crime author (26 best-sellers, so think John Grisham or James Patterson) who uses his connections with the mayor and other such high-rollers to gain access to the NYPD shadowing Detective Kate Beckett as the inspiration for a new lead character to replace his recently fallen creation.

Richard Castle is charming, witty, handsome, suave and thoroughly fun to watch. Nathan Fillion puts forth a great perfomance that truly reels in the audience. From the opening of the episode where he is almost giddy with excitement to be cheking out a new crime scene to interactions with his mother and daughter, he's believable, fun, and always on. Despite a lack of (police) professionalism, he has a knack for solving crimes, bringing fresh eyes to the scene. Though his antics are often dangerous, cause problems on occasion, though naturally it all works out in the end.

Stana Katic stars opposite as Det. Kate Beckett. She's a very by-the-book officer who is good at what she does. Though usually very serious, she does banter with Castle in a way that feels real. Plot-wise, their relationship is complicated by the fact that she is a huge fan of Castle's novels (a fact that fuels Castle's ego to no end). It is amusing to watch her try to set that aside and deal with him as he is: far more annoying than she could have imagined.

The chemistry between these two is perfect. Castle has a blatant attraction for Beckett that he pursues every chance he gets, but Beckett rebuffs him. As an attempt to try to win her over, Castle works on the case of Beckett's mother's murder on the down-low.

This show takes the standard crime procedural and adds a depth many of the others avoid. Not only do we see a great deal of the personal interactions and personal story that shows like Law & Order leave to the side unless they're pulling it out for sweeps. It also brings in a lot of humor and banter, again more-so than its more dramatic counterparts.

It has its occasional lapses, primarily in that Castle gets his case-solving epiphany via his family (primarily his daughter and live-in mother). Whether they provide it in conversation or through action that sparks an idea, it can be occasionally forced and unnatural. But, usually it isn't painfully so.

Great fun, great characters, great mysteries. If you haven't watched it yet, give it a go. I've only only watched the second half of the first season (in one day) and I have rarely been so hooked on a TV show.

As a side-note, the novel that Richard Castle is writing during the first season of the series Heat Wave has been published by ABC using the pen name (of course) Richard Castle. I plan on checking it out soon.

Review: Avatar

2010-04-18T00:32:00.006-06:00

Last weekend I finally got to see Avatar in all its 3D glory. It was... cute. [WARNING: Contains Spoilers]

First and foremost I want to give it full props for the 3D technique (native 3D, rather than contrived in post-production) that will hopefully become the norm in movies to come. The visual depth was absolutely stunning. And the Na'vi were constructed with amazing detail.

But beyond that, I found the movie to be disappointing given the amount of hype surrounding it and the (undeserved, in my opinion) Oscar nod.

The visuals beyond the 3D effects were a bit dull. Virtually every plant and animal seemed to have the exact same waxy ,snake-like texture. The plants also looked overly waxy, and that detracted from the 3D effects, and made the world feel far less real.

The acting was fine. Nothing to write home about, but not bad either. The characters, while cliche were at least believable, and enjoyable to watch..

The story is such a great one. Outsiders journeying to a strange land to get resources to send back home, but uncaring about the native population. This is a new and original story.... oh wait....

I know that there is really no such thing as an original idea anymore, but still, I was half-expecting Neytiri to burst into "Colors of the Wind" at several parts during Jake's lessons.

This was far from the only cliche. It actually got to the point that the movie was bordering on being un-enjoyable due to the level of predictability.

When Neytiri shows Jake the skeleton of the giant bird that has "only been ridden 5 times since the first songs were sung." I knew that at some point Jake would tame one, impress everyone and it would secure his place in the tribe.

Neytiri's fiance was clearly going to die, and gloriously in battle. Can't leave the ex running around, and having him die makes him the sad martyr figure. Of course, first he had to grow to respect and value Jake.

Dr Grace's death was still another exercise in predictability. As soon as I saw what was going on, I knew (1)she was going to die, and, (2) they would go through the same ceremony with Jake, and so he and Neytiri could live happily ever after.

*yawn*

It also didn't help that every one of the characters was an exercise in cliche.

Jake: the down and out warrior, good at heart but willing to do almost anything to get his old life back. That is, up until he meets the hot chick that he falls in love with and shows him how to appreciate life in a new way.

Neytiri: the princess. Strong and vibrant. Loathes our hero at the beginning, but his cute ineptitude wins her over, and she defies all custom to be with him.

Grace: the brain that loves the people they are supposed to destroy. Fights passionately (even if impotently) to save the people, and gives us a character to provide all the technical explanations.

Roid-Rage General: the gruff, older soldier. Has no respect for anything the film defines as "good". Ultimately the bad guy, and goes out fighting the hero, even after his side of the greater battle already lost.

The list goes on. But you get the idea. These characters were utterly unoriginal to the point of even going past "cliche".

The last thing that really bothered me, was when Neytiri reveals to her family and her people that she banged the outsider, they rant and rave for about 10 seconds, but it never really seems to bring about any major conflict. Given that it is implied that who ever Neytiri hooks up with will be the leader of the tribe, it seemed to be a rather blase attitude.

Overall, I'd have to give the movie a B. Worth seeing in theatres (though at this point, it may be hard to find in theatres) for the jump it has made in terms of technological advancement and a better way to handle 3D movies than the current standard.

But don't buy into the hype. While there was nothing really wrong with the plot or the acting, it wasn't the grand thing that the media turned it into.

Girls and Gaming

2010-04-14T15:01:00.001-06:00

This was a post that had been floating around in my head for a few days now, but after reading a post on the same topic over at Blue Ink Alchemy (great blog, go check it out) I had to get this out, because this is a topic that irritates me to no end.

The Blue Ink Alchemist comments on how so many video games are "denigrating" to women due to the fact that many female characters are often scantily clad. He argues that this overly objectifies and sexualizes women. This culture, he says, mixed with often crass comments from male players is why women don't feel comfortable in the gaming community.

This is a topic I've seen floating around all over the place in gaming forums. And, like I said, it really gets my goat.

I am getting damn tired of being told that I'm being insulted, and the assumption that my self-esteem is somehow caught up in what some pubescent, hormonal boy says about me over the internet. In fact, it is this attitude that I find insulting, not the scantily clad female characters.

I'm comfortable enough with who I am that I don't feel lessened when some child runs his mouth about how "lol, girlz can't play games".

I don't cry home to my mommy. I don't feel lessened as a person. I still feel perfectly comfortable with myself, and I just chuckle at them and then blow them out of the water.

In fact, far more than a negative reaction, I get quite the opposite.

An example from my WoW days is when I was running Botanica with a pick-up-group. I was well ahead on the meters. I was listening on vent, but I wasn't talking (so my fellow players had no idea I was really a girl). My ISP (Qwest at the time) failed, and I was disconnecting every couple minutes. One of the times I was logging back in, I get on Ventrilo in time to hear "This guy is really good, he just needs better internet." I speak for the first time in vent to apologize for my constant disconnects, and they all went quiet for a minute. Then I hear "Holy fuck you're a girl?!?!?" This then led to many compliments, comments on how nice it was to find a girl could play as well as I could, and general chit-chat about how I got into gaming.

Back when I was the top DPS in the #4 guild on my WoW server, I remember when we got a loud-mouthed teenage boy in the guild, and he was going off on Ventrilo about how girls couldn't play and that he could never be out-dpsed by a girl. One of the officers responded to him with "Why don't you say that after Ely (my hunter's nickname) grinds you into the dirt?" The boy laughed that there was no way I could beat him. Let's just say after that night's raid he never claimed to be better than a girl again.

I have dozens more stories. And I know many women who do game, and have gotten pretty much the same level of respect. Those acts of disrespect can usually be boiled down to John Gabriel's Internet Fuckwad Theory.

But, of course, there are women who have to focus on the fact that their avatars are "hot" and scantily clad and feel it is somehow necessary to protest this. They cry that it is demeaning to women. They shake their fists and rant and rave.

This makes no sense to me. What's wrong with looking good while you kick ass?

I loved my mage's clothes (or rather lack thereof) with quest rewards from Hellfire Peninsula:

Stop telling me that I shouldn't enjoy playing or interacting with sexy characters just because their sexiness is somehow a threat to my self-image.

As far as it being damaging to young girls that they should look sexy all the time and that's a key element to aspire to, I call bull. Video games at least show these women, more often than not, kicking some serious ass.

Try looking at the magazines that sit at every grocery store's checkout lane. Cosmo and other magazines show scantily clad models, with headlines on "how to give your man a blow job he'll die for". Turn on the television. Check out Girls Next Door which glorifies living as a concubine to an 80-something boat captain and having no higher aspirations than that lifestyle. (Insert Joel McHale's Hugh Heffner impression here)

Just look at Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian whom have shown that you'll get your own TV show if you let a guy tape you having sex with him and put it on the internet. Go to any clothing store, and these days most of the girls clothes are styles that my mother wouldn't have let me wear when I was in high school, let alone first grade.

Our current society tells women to aspire to a certain level of beauty, then to give up her body to any man that wants it and learn how to make him happy in bed.

Video games tell women that just because they're tough and capable, doesn't mean they have to denounce their femininity and pride in their sexuality.

Which is the better message?

And as for there being this male-domination in the game industry, and that women in the industry are just buying into some kind of misogynistic culture, I just don't see it. At this years Interactive Achievement Awards, many of the winning teams had women. And I repeat, what is wrong with a sexy avatar? How is it misogynistic to embrace our sexuality rather than condemning it as an apparent weakness? Most girls that I have talked to who don't like video games just simply have no interest in them. Video games are just more of a guy thing.

I've never known many guys that get all dreamy-eyed when they see a horse. Does that mean that men are being cut out of the loop by some female conspiracy? No. It is a simple lack of interest.

Men and women are wired differently. We like different things. And you know what? That's ok!!

To those denouncing video games as oppressors of women, here's a thought. Why don't you stop reinforcing the idea that women must be so uncomfortable with their own bodies that they should feel threatened by a woman on a video game. Stop telling your daughters that they should feel oppressed because some pixels on the screen are (apparently, according to your logic) clearly so much more attractive than them. Stop telling your daughters that they should completely deny their sexuality.

I fully think that women need to stop playing the victim here. Stop getting up in arms because women in video games are hot and sexy, and not ashamed of their bodies. You just reinforce the idea that women should feel ashamed of their bodies.

Yes. Men are going to rip on women for being female. In our world of high scores, epic gears and unlockable achievements, there will always be ways for people to show that they are somehow better than you. The reason why gender is such an issue (not just in video games, but across the board) is because women have allowed it to be. If being called out as a woman in a video game netted the chauvinistic male no reaction, he'd move on to find something else to belittle you for (you WoW GearScore perhaps). But at least gender would no longer be an issue. But it is up to women as a whole to stop rising to the bait.

Thanks for trying to save me from my (according to these so-called activists) fragile self-esteem that surely must be threatened by the 0s and 1s that coalesce on my screen.

But this princess can save herself. And I can do it in stilettos. Let's see Master Chief or Gordan Freeman do that.

Hardecore vs Casual: The Bloody War

2010-04-05T18:49:00.003-06:00

Over the last couple of years, the "casual gamer" has been making its voice heard in the industry. The gaming community seems to now be completely polarized into 2 camps: the Hardcore and the Casual. And these two camps do not get along.

Many people have asked why. Why can't the hardcore get along with the casuals? Why do casuals get flamed so often on gaming websites?

I think the first problem is that people have different ideas of what the word "gamer" means.

Over the last couple of decades, gamers have proudly created their own culture. The head of the UCCS Game Design and Development program, Dr Chamillard, told a story of spending an entire night during his college days playing one arcade game (I forget which) until his finger was bleeding.

His students then chuckled, nodding their heads in an understanding fashion.

For many of us, this falls into the definition of a true gamer. Someone for whom the gaming experience becomes something more. It's a matter of pride. We stay up late to get in just one more level. We follow our favorite developers and their current projects. We comment on where we think our favorite games are going. We are emotionally invested, on some level. We have a bond with our fellow gamers.

It has been almost like a secret society. But, our secret is out. Over the last few years, gaming has branched out. It reaches out to the non-gamer. The casual. The people that don't want to spend more than a few minutes a day on the game of their choice.

iPods, smartphones, Facebook etc have all started introducing games specifically designed to attract people that don't know what FPS, RPG, RTS etc stand for. They have little idea of the vastness of the rabbit hole they have tumbled down.

The most notable major game to succumb to the casuals is Blizzard's World of Warcraft. These casuals come in, and are astounded when their critiques and comments aren't accepted with open minds.

Some of it, admittedly, is the elitism that runs rampant in our virtual world of high scores and epeens. But not all of it.

Most of us feel we earned the title of "Gamer". We played multiple games. We took an interest in the design. We joined the aforementioned secret society as it were. To see someone who's only gaming experience is a flash-based game using that sacrosanct title is annoying, even to the best of us.

But it runs deeper than that. Casuals speak of abuse and derogation at the hands of the hardcore. But it's a two way street. The hardcores are called basement-dwellers, assumed to have no life or relationships. We get mocked for defending our games. This certainly does nothing for the case of the casual.

The worst, and most rampant in our society of information-at-a-click where Wikipedia makes you feel like an expert, is the "know-it-all" attitude so many people take on.

The next few examples are going to come from World of Warcraft, as I feel that it has some of the best examples of what casuals, or at least a certain breed of casuals, can do to a game. A true representation that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

WoW has become a phenomenon. It has taken what was a very niche market and exploded it to the most popular MMO in the world. With a staggering 11 million subscribers, they have done a great deal bringing casuals into the realm of gaming.

This has many pros. I've seen families play together, providing a bond between parents and siblings through shared experience. More gamers means a more universal acceptance of the gamer culture. Admitting you play video games no longer contains the connotation that you are a "complete nerd".

But not all change is necessarily good. Particularly in the WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, change seems to be coming at the cost of quality. Casual gamers, rather than tailoring their own experience around their play-time limitations, are demanding more and more that the game conform around their needs. And the sense of entitlement in many of these requests is absolutely astounding.

These players in particular are a sub-group of the casuals, and whom the "good" casuals get lumped in with. These players are what I call "The Lazy Whiners."

It is these players that the hardcore are truly raging against, and why, I believe, the good casuals are merely casualties in the crossfire.

I've seen players complaining that raids are too long and should be able to be fully completed in a single 3-4 hour sitting, without requiring a huge learning curve on new content. This causes an unbelievable (and I feel justified) outrage amongst the hardcore. Raids have always been meant to be the truly epic. The biggest battles and most dangerous foes. They were always meant to be what was reserved for the people that had the time and dedication to apply themselves.

The Whiners, when they have this pointed out to them, simply reply "Then it's time for change. Unlike you, I have a life and I can't raid on a more standard schedule because of x, y and z. Why is it fair that I pay for a game when I cannot play all the content?"

I think the better question is "Why did you buy a game for which you are unable to fulfill the requirements for endgame?" WoW has achievements, lesser dungeons, and even a handful of smaller raids for the casual player that can only log on one or two days a week for a relatively short amount time.

This is the only hobby I see this attitude becoming prevalent. I don't see people saying "It's not fair I can't play on the varsity football team just because I can't show up for practice." Again, when this is pointed out, these self-titled gamers say "But that's real life. This is just a video game."

Just. A video game.

When told that the current setup is how the game is supposed to be played, the whiner replies "Well that's how it used to be, but the game belongs to casuals now. We should get whatever we want."

I have even seen no shortage of posts made to openly mock the hardcore after a change made to suit the whiners is made.

Now we start to hit the crux of the problem: casuals see their games, all games even, as being temporary pasttimes that should fit into their box of what is "fun" and "easy". But let's put in a few more examples to see if we can establish a pattern.

Throughout Lich King, but especially in the weeks leading up to patch 3.3.3, there was a flood of threads on the suggestion forums asking for Frozen Orbs to be "greed only" because other players were rolling Need on them, and they apparently didn't have a right to. The argument usually went something like this:

Whiner:     "People are rolling need on the orbs. No one has any reason to hit need on the orb. They are stealing it! Please change it so it is greed roll only."
Gamer:     "People have plenty of reasons to roll need. Professions, crafting, or even just cause. Big deal. Why can't you just hit the need button yourself?"
Whiner:     "Because needing on orbs is morally wrong [I kid you not, this argument was used often] and it is Blizzard's job to make sure that I have an enjoyable time playing their game."
Gamer:     "It takes only a second to inform your group that you are rolling need on the orb. It takes minimal effort."
Whiner:     "I don't care. It's not my problem. It's Blizzard's."

Here we see the lack of accountability that is evident in our lawsuit-happy society. "It's everyone else's job to make sure I'm happy. I should never have to expend effort to make sure my needs are met."

This attitude perpetuates itself further through WoW in other areas. "I raid with people I don't know who set the loot system to master looter, then take all the items. This is Blizzard's problem. I should not have to expend effort finding trustworthy raid leaders, or in finding a guild that meets my scheduling needs."

"Why do I have to raid to get top-end gear? I don't need it [as in raiders need top gear to progress further within the instance] but why am I being denied it?"

The list goes on ad infinitum. "Why should I accept that certain aspects of the game are unavailable to me just because I only play an hour or two a week?"

When told that these things are available if you're willing to work for them, the response is "Just because you don't have a life doesn't mean I don't. It's just a game. Games aren't supposed to require effort. They're supposed to easy and just for fun."

Now we start to hit the key issues. These Lazy Whiners, hiding under the casual tag, call themselves gamers. They claim loudly that their opinions are just as good as anyone else's. Then, they turn around and undermine the medium at every turn. They reach out and demand that all games they have an interest, but not the time, to play dumb down their mechanics and gameplay to suit them. Not all changes are bad. I like that raiding has become more accessible (if a little too watered down in some areas) and the hardcore are given a variety of hardmodes and heroic difficulty to satisfy their urges. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

And just as the casuals seem to lump all the hardcore players under the heading of "40-yr old virgins with no life living in their parents' basement", the hardcores are just as quick to lump all casual players in with the Lazy Whiners.

Overall, I have found that hardcores have nothing against casual players, if that player "knows their place" as it were. By this, I mean the casual understands that they may or may not be able to experience all the content out there, and accepts that this is a limitation of their own schedule, rather than some conspiracy on the part of the developer to exclude them.

When a casual posts asking "These are my limitations in playing, this is what I would like to experience. Any suggestions on how to make it work?" they are typically met with responses that point them to places where they can find what they want (looking for guilds whose schedule fits their time constraints, how to find effective pick up groups etc).

But unfortunately, I don't see a real peace between the two breeds of gamers until a number of things change: (1) The casual gamers need to grasp that they are not really "the future" of gaming. They will certainly impact the industry greatly, but they should not expect every game they enjoy to conform to their scheduling limitations.
(2) Both sides need to accept that most of them are in the happy middle ground of people who enjoy a game. Both sides are quick to get up in arms against the other. But not all casuals are morons who want every game dumbed down to their level, and not all hardcores are elitists that believe your input is only valid if you have "uberleet skillz".
(3) Gaming houses such as Blizzard need to stop caving so steeply in favor of the casuals. Doing so is alienating their loyal fanbase whose input is what brought the game to greatness. There can be separate areas of fun for both sides, and the house needs to take a stand and say "Sorry, but if you don't have the time, you're just going to have to miss out on this one. But here are some more casual-oriented things for you to do."
(4) Our culture needs to abandon the self-entitled, lack of personal responsibility, and demand for instant gratification requiring no effort that has become a plague upon our entire culture, not just gaming.

There are more of course. But these four would surely be a giant step in the right direction for relative peace within the growing gaming community.

Zynga: A Plague Upon Our [Game] Houses

2010-04-04T23:02:00.002-06:00

This year, Facebook social game "developer" Zynga was included in The Escapist's March Madness rounds of voting. Zynga made it all the way to the Final Four, beating out more established and influential game houses such as Infinity Ward and Rockstar North. And even in the Final Four, gave Valve a run for their money.

This sparked outrage of epic proportions across the Escapist forums. While I tried to avoid the mindless flaming, even I was floored by the "validation" Zynga has managed to accrue for itself. Many people commented wondering where the hate was coming from, and for myself, it stemmed from many places.

First, Zynga is a plagiarist. They settled with the makers of Mob Wars when they copied it for Mafia Wars. Farmville (especially the original release) was a flat out copy-paste of the game FarmTown with their own sprites. Many of their other games, particularly games like Vampire Wars, Fashion Wars etc are simply copy-pastes of Mafia Wars, but with different themes. I can accept copies of classics such as Bouncing Balls, Tetris, etc.

If the so-called "social gaming" (though personally I don't see what's "social" about spamming your feed with linksfor random people you only friend-ed to grow your army) genre had to be admitted, the creators of Castle Age offer a much better game. It has story, characters, weapons and armor, and a much better development than anything I've seen from Zynga.

Second, should "social-gaming" developers be accepted as "real" developers, and should they be given the same kind of recognition as those that have have been a great influence in the industry. Some argued that Zynga was doing a positive thing by exposing a new audience to video games.

But, giving people with only a passing knowledge of a bastardized sub-genre of games the confidence to call themselves "gamers" is not a positive thing. You get a large influx of people who have no idea what they are talking about trying to bring about changes to make games accessible.

These changes are not always good. Look at Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Since the release of their more "casual-friendly" xpac, Wrath of the Lich King, the quality of the game has fallen to cater to players who can't be bothered to be proactive in controlling who they play with and flood the Suggestion Forum with a ridiculous amount of threads demanding that Blizzard step up and protect them from these "big, bad, mean" players. When told there are tools in-game to change their experience, they throw a hissy fit saying they shouldn't have to exert any effort because a game shouldn't require any effort.

A few posters on Escapist, including myself, used the current teen sensation Twilight to try to illustrate the point, from both sides of the fence. My viewpoint is that our culture is quickly disintegrating to the point where the cheap and tawdry is praised far more than the artistic and meaningful.

Twilight is praised, and its readers come to accept it as a high bar in the literary world, rather than for the drivel it is. Some argued that getting into Twilight may cause them to branch out into the great authors of the genre (Rice, King, etc). But in my experience, for every single one of those readers, there are a hundred more like this irate fan who send the message to corporate side of the artistic community that this is the standard that they should give deals to and hype the most.

Future writers dumb down their own writings in hopes of getting meeting the market's demands and get there works published. New generations are introduced to more drivel and tripe, and the downward spiral continues.

The whole point of this is that we need to stop giving validation to any tripe just because it hides under the misnomer of "casual" and therefore if we don't accept it with open arms, we're just elitist pricks who can't stand change.

Not all change is good. So why do we continue to accept all change as if it were?

At least the anti-Zynga movement picked up enough momentum to finally put them out of this competition. A competition they never belonged in. I can only hope that they damage they have caused the game industry will remain at a real minimum.

Unfortunately, I don't believe this blight shall be ended so easily.