The Vista search function is easily worth the price of admission. I was worried there for a while because for years I've been using an indexing system I developed to keep track of my hundreds of backup and archive DVDs. A very simple and elegant solution of assigning each DVD a number, and using a simple directory dump to a text file for each one. Then, any time I needed to find an archived file, I simply do a search of my index folder set to search within the text files' contents. The results would show the archive numbers my search term appeared in, and I could simply open those text files (if more than one appeared) to check their contents to see which one had the file I wanted.

This worked in Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. So I was worried that the new searching methods might break this system. Au contraire! It's even faster and more efficient now! Microsoft has clearly recognised the importance of searching in modern day computing, as had Google with their Desktop Search and other companies with similar products, and having it built into the OS is quite a boon. The old way, I had my Indexes folder in my Favourites, so I would go Start>Favourites>Indexes, then hit Ctrl-F to search that folder. Results would come up in a few seconds. Now, I can search directly from the bloody Start menu, and results come up instantly. A tap of the Windows key is all it takes.

As if the speed wasn't enough, let's say I'm not sure whether a given file has been archived already, or is still on the hard drive somewhere. Old method, I'd try searching the indexes first, and if I didn't find it there I'd search the whole hard drive, as slow as that would be. New method, I do that same search from the start menu that I just mentioned, and it shows both indexes containing my search words, and any matching files on the hard drive. Instantly. And we're talking about a nearly-full 290GB drive.

And the ways you can sort and organise your search results or just folder views with virtual folders/saved searches, view filtering, and tagging makes this a dream come true for keeping my massive quantities of files manageable.

Labels: review

Despite me being a neophile, I'm generally cautious about adopting new tech. I like to wait a while and see the reviews and give it a little time for any flaws to be shown, etc. With some software, I've been known to stick with an old version for many years if I find the new features and abilities don't warrant the increased memory requirements or interface bloat (Photoshop), or if I find no useful new tools for my purposes at all (Flash).

Similarly, I was very slow to embrace Windows XP, since Windows 2000 had been serving my purposes very well for a long time, and it was very stable and secure. It still is, in fact. One of my machines still runs it, and I've been using that one as a secure file server. In fact I didn't so much "upgrade" to WinXP as I just failed to uninstall it on the new machine I bought several years ago on which it came. I did plan to change the OS to Win2K, just never got around to it because WinXP did the job well enough, and eventually I got used to it and came to appreciate some of its newer features.

With Windows Vista, it happened the same way, just much sooner. My former main computer (an HP Pavilion a510n with extra RAM, extra hard drives, and a Radion 9800 All-In-Wonder) had failed on me a few times -- each time I was able to recover it, of course, but this time I decided it was high time to get a new computer that could run the newer games nicely, run my existing software faster, and run some of the newer software that required the SSE2 instruction set, which my old one didn't have.

I went to Fry's and picked one that met my budget and seemed to have most of what I needed. They were all Vista-equipped, of course. I had mentioned a month or two previously on the Anime Studio forum that I was looking into getting a Vista machine, even after seeing all sorts of posts warning about draconian DRM, incompatibilities, irritating features, clandestine file deletions, and a total lack of support for games. It sounded ridiculous, straining credibility, like an urban legend, or propaganda. And at least one review I'd read from a much more credible source completely contradicted the scaremongering. So I bought it anyway, brazenly ignoring the warnings.

The computer (an HP Pavilion a6010n running Vista Home Premium) came with a measly 1GB of RAM, which was less than I was using with WinXP, so I took advantage of a special Fry's was running and preemptively bought an extra 4GB. I knew I'd also have to get a new video card, since the onboard graphics would be insufficient for my purposes, but I decided to wait until I'd had a chance to try it out.

So I set it up, and spent the next few days getting acquainted with the new OS, adjusting settings to my liking, and deleting all the unnecessary bundled crap new computers always come with, like trial versions of MS Office (OpenOffice does the job well enough, and it's free), demos of games, dialup provider signups, etc. Also proceeded to install all of my most used software and utilities, especially with an eye for any possible problems or incompatibilities. Everything ran fine. The graphics were slow, as expected, so I went shopping shortly thereafter for a graphics card that's more than I need at present, which will hopefully last a good while. I went with a DirectX 10 Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS.

Next step was to get my data from my old computer onto the new one. So I stuck my old hard drive in as a slave. I knew I'd quickly regret having to stick with IDE for the last hard drive I bought, since the old machine didn't support SATA, and sure enough, this motherboard only had 1 IDE controller port, which meant that I could only add 1 of my old drives, while leaving in the also-IDE DVD burner. Not too important, since this computer comes with a generous 290GB drive (actually somewhere around 300, but there's the usual recovery partition taking up about 8GB. I'll probably end up repartitioning it eventually to reclaim that space).

While I had my new computer's guts torn out, probably perplexing Richard when he happened by to see me operating on the thing, I also swapped the power supply for the higher wattage one in my old computer (also an after-market addition) to better accomodate the additional drive and the power-hungry video card.

It took a number of hours to copy all the data from the old drive to the new into a temporary folder to let me sort it all out as I have time. I began by copying over all my e-mail and Firefox settings and bookmarks and the preferences and game saves from any other software I needed. The rest I'll work on gradually.

The next day I removed that drive and installed my larger storage drive which I intend to leave in there. I'll eventually patch up my old computer, get it running again, and use it as my file server, retiring the older computer currently occupying that space.

So far, everything has migrated fine. All my data is intact, and every program and game I've tried has run fine. Some of it I didn't even need to reinstall, just copy the program folder from the old computer into its new permanent place.

The computer connected to the network automatically of course; internet was no trouble. But I wasn't able to see my file server. It took several more hours of research and experiment to determine it was the fault of the Norton Internet Security that came with the computer, blocking all file sharing access, both incoming and outgoing. I set up some trusted identities and computers, and it was all fine.

There are a few things I still need to get used to and try out, like the new method of searching it uses. My old system of CD and DVD indexing still works with this version, but I might be able to use it to search faster and more efficiently, because the new search supports booleans. There are several web pages devoted to the new search system that I still need to digest.

Some things in the interface are slowing me down, though, like the "smooth scrolling" in the file windows that doesn't turn off even though I ticked the box that says it turns it off. That, and the "classic folders" that doesn't seem to work either. I'm waiting for an official TweakUI for Vista that'll allow me to do that and the other things I liked to do in XP and previous versions.

And Favourites isn't in the drive windows anymore. In previous versions, it existed in both IE and Windows Explorer, because they were essentially the same thing. Since I use Firefox, not IE, I was using my Favourites folder for links to my most frequently used folders. Just be in such a folder, pick "add folder to favourites" in the Favourites menu, and that folder would be instantly accessible from any drive window I happened to be in, or right from the Start menu. In Vista, it seems they've decided it should only be in IE. Not even keyboard shortcuts will conjure it in a drive window. It still exists in the Start menu if you enable that option, but it behaves differently than it did before.

Also, the links in the right-hand panel of the Start menu (or is it called a Windows Logo menu now?) no longer have icons beside them -- they're just plain text now. Those icons were useful to more quickly locate the option I wanted. And I can't find any way to restore them. The icons exist, I know this because if you hover over the text links, the icon slowly fades in to replace the user avatar at the top of the menu. Very useful, Microsoft. Not.

These interface annoyances I predict will either be resolved through tweaking software over time, or I'll adapt to the quirks, or find new ways of accomplishing my tasks efficiently in the new OS. All in all, my verdict is that all the scaremongering and rumours about Vista that I've heard have been either entirely baseless, or easily resolved.

Labels: review

I am someone who loved the late lamented Surge. I became acquainted with it almost immediately before its discontinuation around 2000-2001, at the house of my friend Brendan. Thereafter I bought several cases of it, perhaps even the last cases in the area, because for several months afterward, I saw no more coming in, even after I asked about it at the store. While visiting Brendan's house around this time, I was surprised to find he had a 12-pack of Surge left, and he graciously shared it with me, even after I told him I was unable to find it anymore. He believed it could still be obtained through ThinkGeek.com, and maybe it could at the time, but soon enough, it was all gone, and I later learnt it had been discontinued.

Other drinks I loved which were discontinued include 3 drinks from Sobe: Wisdom, Karma, and Zen Blend. The first two may have been discontinued for a good reason, as they contained St John's Wort, which may not be the best thing to put in drinks. But Zen Blend was a wonderful blend of several kinds of tea, 3 or 4 kinds of ginseng, and several fruit juices. It became harder to find, and eventually vanished, only to be resurrected with a changed recipe a year later or so. It wasn't as good, had far fewer ingredients, but I took it anyway. I was only able to find it at one small gas station about 2 hours' drive away. I stocked up whenever I happened to be passing by that way, but soon enough it was gone from there, too. I still have a single bottle of the original blend, which I have the semi-joking fantasy of replicating someday when we have access to molecular or chemical samplers that can reconstruct a substance from a sample. If it hasn't horribly spoiled by then. I have no idea of the shelf life of this sort of drink.

Anyway, I finally tried Vault. Well, it was only released nationally 5 months ago, and may not have shown up here until last month. I know I'm the only one on the Frappr map in the Central Valley. But last year I was in Virginia, which was test marketing it at the time. Just never got to try it until now.

I admit, my memory of the taste of Surge is rather cloudy, but Vault pleases my palate quite nicely. I think it's a worthy replacement, though perhaps it wasn't necessary to increase the amount of caffeine. I think it's second only to Jolt in this recipe, while Surge was below Mountain Dew (another favourite of mine). At any rate, my taste result was that yes, I accept Vault in place of Surge, and after finishing the bottle, my opinion remains the same. I'll be getting more. In fact, if I had a Vault T-shirt, I'd wear it proudly to spread the word of our new saviour.

Labels: review

I've been hanging around the 10 Second Club lately, and everyone has been recommending this book, The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. I already own Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation and Shamus Culhane's Animation From Script to Screen, and I've read numerous other books on animation that I recommend whenever anyone asks, but I had to see why this book comes recommended so highly, so I checked it out from the library.

It's a great book. I've learnt new things, and been reminded of things I'd forgotten. His writing is clear, instructive, and doesn't get muddled down too much in archaic or obsolete terminology or methods. An old-school animator who has a clear love for his animation mentors, masters of the art who are no longer living, Williams acknowledges and embraces the modern ways of doing things. And of course the principles and tips are universal to any animation medium, whether modern or old-fashioned.

There is a large and detailed section on how to animate a walk. Preston Blair showed many different walk and run cycles in his book, but Williams doesn't just show you how, he shows you why. This book has given me an understanding of walks that I didn't get from Preston Blair, or even from having animated many walks in my own experience!

Anyway, it looks very useful, and I think I need to get my own copy. I probably won't get rid of my Preston Blair book, but I don't think I'll have much occasion to refer to it anymore.

Labels: review

I just finished reading the graphic novel yesterday. If you like dystopian fiction where there's no real "hero", and you know who Guy Fawkes is even if you're not British, then you ought to read this novel.

As for the movie...I ought to have learnt my lesson about seeing movies someone adapted from an Alan Moore comic, after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was an excellent set of graphic novels made into a crappy movie, and my friend Taliesin says the same of From Hell. Still, though I've not yet seen the V For Vendetta movie, something tells me I probably will. I know they totally changed the ending, but I was surprised to see characters listed in the cast list on IMDb that I expected would have to have been cut. This is a long graphic novel -- there's no doubt they had to condense it. So I'm curious about what they did cut.

But being the Wachowski Brothers, I'm expecting they'll be emphasising V's superhuman quickness in a fight -- which, while it certainly was there, and was pointed out many times, it was definitely not the focus of the story. Even more supernatural than his speed was V's ability to plan for every tiny detail in his complex plan for revolution, and his ability to carry it out with surgical precision, all the while quoting from various works of culture.

So far, I've enjoyed everything I've read from Alan Moore, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman's not so much a writer, as he is a collector and reteller of fairy tales and legends, and a weaver of atmosphere. As far as plot, pacing, and characterisation goes, his writing is weak. Much like Dan Brown's not so much a fiction writer, as he is a composer of essays on some neat ideas, and a writer of travel guides. Hmm, I could keep adding to this, but I think I'll expand on this and some others in a later entry I'll call "Writers Who Increasingly Piss Me Off the More I Read From Them."

Labels: comics, review

Just so there's no repeat of the Shaun of the Dead thing from a few years ago, since I see last year's Dr Who series is about to be shown in the US, let me just say in advance that it's a great show, and you'll probably like it. I anticipate a great big wave of new Dr Who fans who have never known about it before. I saw the whole season in mid-2005 when it was airing originally, and it's much better than the older seasons. Better budget, more dramatic, less corny. I thought the new regeneration of the Doctor was a great choice, despite his short haircut and rather normal clothes. There's still corn and cheese in the series, but in a fun way, so enjoy, all!

Labels: review

Well, since I'm going to Québec again on the 19th, I ordered a new passport. I had one from my trip to Japan some time ago, but it expired since then. So I got the new photos taken at Kinko's...they used a digital camera and I ended up with essentially a colour printout of a couple of pictures. The quality wasn't that great, but I guess most people are used to bad passport pictures. My last one was pretty good, so I guess I had higher expectations.

Well, I paid the extra fee for expedited service and express mail return delivery, so it cost me about twice as much as it would have if I'd had the money to do it earlier. The service was actually very prompt and without trouble, to my surprise. After my trouble at the DMV in getting a replacement driver license all thanks to their increased "security", the replacement passport was very straightforward. Took only about a week, even though they said it would take 2 weeks. I received my new passport 2 days after seeing on my online banking that they'd cashed the check. Happily, they also returned my old passport (cancelled with a stamp and 2 holes punched in it), so I still have that memento of my travels.

So, the new passport style...well, it's prettier with all the colours and shiny seal on the main page, and the font is better than before, but the cover material is thinner than the previous one. Also, the photo is not one of the two I sent in. It's clearly been scanned and re-printed on the page with the rest of the information, and the contrast is harsher and the colours are uglier. Half of my face is stark white. Why did they require I send 2 pictures if they weren't going to use one of them for the passport itself, like they did before?

Well, that's my only real gripe about it. I notice that the new passport has 6 pages of general information before the visa marks start, where the previous one had only 3. The rest of the pages are decorated with bluish watermarks of all the state seals, different on each page. A nice design decision, and probably good for anti-counterfeiting purposes, too.

Labels: review

It's sort of old news now, but I'm very disturbed by the huge disaster that's been made over the Hot Coffee mod that hacks GTA: San Andreas to allow the player to execute code that was otherwise inaccessible, to allow the character CJ to have sex with his girlfriend. Unlike some people who are quick to judge things that they haven't bothered to actually try out, I've played the game, in depth. And an amazing game it is. It has broken the record for PS2 game sales, and it well deserves that record.

The game is meant for adult audiences -- it's rated M, which means no one under 17 may buy it. I haven't watched any gangster movies other than Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill -- I assume Boys In the Hood would be a better comparison if I had seen it, but the level of grittiness (violence and language-wise) seems on par with those two movies. As gritty as they were, they were rated R, not NC-17, and certainly not X, which is the equivalent revised rating they've given GTA: San Andreas. Setting aside for the moment that you cannot see the sex in the game without hacking it, let me describe how the sex is portrayed:

The sex occurs between CJ and a girlfriend only after many dates where we see them smiling, laughing, holding hands, and kissing in the cinematics that play after successful dates. CJ must wait for her to offer the sex, after he has been dating her for a while and been treating her well. He cannot force it on her. It is entirely consensual and positive, and an entirely believable thing for a happy couple to be doing.

You see no penis, no vagina, no penetration, no closeups, no sound effects other than an occasional moan from the girlfriend if you're doing well. A movie with this content would get no more than an R rating.

Aside from the fact that there is no way to access the sex in the normally-played game, it is evident that Rockstar decided not to use it and left this code unfinished, because CJ is entirely clothed during the sex, and there is no music in the background.

Movie directors never get this kind of outrageous attention when they leave a few scenes on the cutting room floor to achieve a lighter rating. That is exactly what game producer Rockstar did -- they edited out a game feature. A piece of software is not as easily edited as a movie. Removing chunks of code can be tricky and if it's not done very carefully, it can cause the whole thing to become unstable. They were well within their rights to lock it away, unused like a vestigal organ. If someone found a way to make it work again, that is not Rockstar's fault. Indeed, their user license expressly forbids the kind of reverse-engineering required to have done this.

I am further disturbed by a seeming inability of the news media to understand the reality of the situation. Time and again I see people reporting that Rockstar first denied creating the Hot Coffee content, then changed their story. I read their statement, and they did nothing of the sort. They blamed the hacker for doing what was forbidden, reverse-engineering the game, to create the mod that allowed players to see this abandoned code. They didn't say the hacker created the content of the Hot Coffee mini-game, they just said in a carefully worded statement that the sex was not a part of the finished game, as they released it. I quote: "...the 'hot coffee' scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications and reverse engineering of the game's source code". Get it right, media people. You're doing them more harm than good. They are the victims here.

"The editing and finalization of any game is a complicated task and it's not uncommon for unused and unfinished content to remain on the disc," also said the spokesman. Similarly, another lesser-known mod for this game allows players to re-enable a skateboard into the game. Rockstar had planned to include skateboard riding, but abandoned that code, too, yet vestiges of it are still in the code. And in the same way, a player will never see the skateboard unless it is hacked back into the game like Hot Coffee was. Even then, the skateboard is even less finished than Hot Coffee, and even with the mod, you will not be able to ride the skateboard, because Rockstar just never got that far into the programming before abandoning it.

Despite how some people make it out, this game is not nonstop mindless violence and sex. It has a solid, realistic story with excellent scripting, well-respected actors such as Samuel L. Jackson playing the characters (see the IMDB listing for more big names), and a boatload of non-violent activities to pursue. You do not have to go around shooting people (which is exactly what you have to do in most other first person video games). In this game, it is the choice of the player. GTA is primarily a driving game, and you don't even need to carjack people's cars to go for a drive. There are plenty of unoccupied cars and other vehicles available to drive. Here are some of the more "inoffensive" activities available:

• Playing basketball: Shoot hoops solo, trying to make baskets from different areas on the court. Just go to the court and pick up the basketball to start playing.
• Playing billiards: A full-featured, very fun (if you like playing pool) pool game played against a computer opponent or another player. Realistic billiard ball physics, different viewing angles, and a helper for difficult angles. Just go to the local pub down the street and talk to the guy standing by the pool table to start playing.
• Playing video games: Yes, within the game you can play other games. There are 3 or 4 different 90s-style arcade games at various locations in the game world.
• Bicycle delivery: Quite fun and challenging. Deliver packages from a food mart to various locations all over town, within the time limit. You have to deliver more and to more widely scattered locations as levels progress.
• Taxi service: A lot like the game Crazy Taxi. Pick up passengers and get them to their destination within the time limit. Bonuses for speed and the levels get progressively more challenging. Remember, although you can drive like a maniac, you are punished for hitting pedestrians or other things -- hitting pedestrians will make the police start chasing you and you could end up busted and lose all of your items and some of your money. Similarly, hitting other things and damaging your car too much can end the taxi mission, or make it blow up and you'll end up in the hospital, which also makes you lose all your items and some money. The goal of driving is to drive skillfuly, avoiding collisions with anything.
• Paramedic: Injured people need your help! Pick up people in an ambulance and get them to the hospital on time. Drive carefully, or they might die!
• Firefighter: Extinguish fires across town in a fire truck.
• Vigilante: Assist the police in chasing down dangerous criminals.
• BMX challenge: Ride your bike, doing trick jumps and riding up and down ramps and half-pipes to catch all of the rings throughout the bike park, within the time limit.
• Triathlon: Swimming, then running, then...I don't know, because my stamina wasn't high enough to get further than that.
  
• Boxing and martial arts matches: Available at the various city gyms.
• Dancing: DDR-style arrow-based dancing moves.
• Lowrider bouncing competition: Arrow-based just like the dancing, but you're bouncing your lowrider's hydraulics to the arrow beats.
• Exploring: The game world is huge and detailed. Just exploring the scenery, the cities and the wide and varied countryside is a pleasure in itself. But there are also specific exploration-related activities you can pursue:

Collecting oysters: There are 50 valuable oysters to be found underwater all over the state, for those who would like the challenge of finding them all.

Collecting horseshoes: There are 50 horseshoes scattered throughout one of the cities to find as a scavenger hunt.

Graffiti: There are 100 gang tags on walls throughout one of the cities that the player can cover up with a spraypaint can.

Photography: There are 50 particularly scenic locations that the player can find and photograph for another bonus.

Unique jumps: There are 70 ramps throughout the state which will give you a bonus if you find them and jump them in a car or bike.

• Just going for a drive: Cruise downtown with the radio on your favourite early 90s station (there are quite a few to choose from, even though the amount of content seems to be on the slim side) or fire up your own custom folder of mp3s interspersed with 90s DJ chatter and amusing fake commercials. Or drive along the coastal highway. Turn on some thumping bass and cruise your hydraulic-bouncing lowrider down the inner city streets. Drive through rural country roads and watch the farms go by while listening to country music if you prefer.
  
• Dating: The dating is a whole game in itself. Meet certain girls, dress up or work out in the gym to impress them (they all have different tastes), bring flowers, take them to restaurants or out dancing, or various other activities (also based on their tastes). Personally, I think the Hot Coffee mod is a welcome and challenging addition to the dating portion of the game, but you still have the option of declining to go inside for "coffee", if you so desire. Keep the girls happy by giving them plenty of attention and dating them often, or your relationship status will go down.
• Stadium racecar driving: Do laps around a racetrack with a bunch of computer opponent cars, with an announcer and a cheering crowd.
• Attending flight school: You get your pilot license this way, allowing you to legitimately fly planes in the game.
• Plane and helicopter flying: For fun, for transportation, or for challenging race and checkpoint missions.
• Parachuting
• Base jumping
• Horse racing
• Various full-featured casino games: Including video poker, blackjack, roulette, slot machines. and wheel of fortune.
  

This is nowhere near all of the non-violent things you can do. This is what I've found after exploring less than 1/3 of the locations in the game. I haven't even mentioned the ability to go clothes shopping at the several different kinds of clothes shops and getting different styles of haircuts, customising your cars at auto shops, etc. There is much, much more to do, in addition to the more gangster-oriented storyline missions. This game is literally dozens of games in one; scores of games, even. An incredible value.

Rockstar deserves awards, accolades, and lots of money for this game, not the huge costs of recalling discs, carefully editing the game code to remove the already-censored sexual content in an already adult-rated game, being careful to keep the software stable -- and they certainly don't deserve a Federal Trade Commission investigation.

And for reason's sake, politicians, shut the hell up about "the children". The game is for adults. I'm an adult, and I want to play the goddamned game. Stop trying to turn the whole world into a nursery.

Labels: games, review

If anything deserves to have an absolutely faithful animated version made of it, it's Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things. This comic by Ted Naifeh embodies everything I love about fairies, wizards, and witches.

By "absolutely faithful," I mean that it should be animated exactly as Ted drew it and wrote it -- nothing added (unless Mr Naifeh wants to add something he may have omitted in the comic), nothing taken away. No directorial indulgences nor toning things down to appeal to the kiddies or to placate angry religious fanatics.

News tells that Fox has picked it up for a live action movie version. I have mixed feelings about that. Personally, I would much rather see it animated. Indeed, it would be a dream project for me. I can think of nothing I'd rather animate (aside from my personal projects, naturally -- I'm talking about paying work here) other than this. Now if only The Dream by Birthday Massacre could be snuck onto the soundtrack, it would be all the better, methinks.

My fear about the Fox movie is that it will change it into something other than what it is. I have never seen a faithful comic-to-movie adaptation, and there is absolutely no reason for that. Unlike novels-to-movies, a comic is already in a visual medium, complete with timing. It is already written for the screen. Indeed, movies are shot from storyboards, which are, essentially, comics. So, while this movie will no doubt be a good thing in terms of money and exposure for Mr Naifeh, I think I'll stick with the comics.

At the time of this writing, I have read two of the completed stories in the Courtney Crumrin series (a third has recently been released). It concerns a young outcast girl brought to a new town by her vacuous socialite parents to live with the family patriarch -- a brooding, reclusive, and imposing gentleman. Courtney immediately becomes the object of torment at the local school, and soon happens upon hidden things belonging to her grandfather, providing knowledge of a sort that is very useful in her travails, both pedestrian and otherworldly.

A premise that could easily have failed at the hands of a lesser writer, this story is told masterfully and is satisfying all the way through. The art is appealing and both stylised and detailed, and the writing is rich with folkloric detail, which appears to be primarily from Celtic sources if I recognise it correctly. The only other comic that I've read that so well utilised such folklore was the original Mage: The Hero Discovered series by Matt Wagner. Both are highly recommended.

Labels: comics, review

FarCry is a pretty game, but not fun. At least, not for me. I was wanting to play something yesterday, but didn't really want to play FarCry. So I played Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban instead, and that was fun. All too soon, I finished it. If you've seen the movie, you know how it ends, but that's not really the draw of the game in this case.

The part that makes it fun are the challenges and puzzles. Hippogryph-riding was pretty fun, but the 3 spell-oriented challenges were very good and exploratory as well. You can redo any of the challenges whenever you want, and you're usually free to explore the levels, especially Hogwarts, where there are plenty of secrets and opportunities to increase your collection of the various sweets that are used as currency at Hogwarts, and of the collectors cards, which are a trickier challenge. I was not able to find all of them, and there are some that must be found, rather than bought from the NPCs who offer to sell them to you. A complete collection of the cards is not necessary to win, though.

In looking over the site I just linked above, it appears that the PC version of the game is much smaller than the console versions. There are spells, potions, and locations shown on the site that are not in the game that I played. The animation and graphics quality appears to be much better on the console versions as well, if what I'm seeing there are actual examples of the gameplay. Also, I see on their site samples of Hermione performing the Glacius spell, and Harry performing Carpe Retractum, which does not occur in the PC version (in which only Ron performs Carpe Retractum, and only Harry performs Glacius).

As for FarCry, it has 4 or 5 difficulty levels. The easiest one has the description "A nice walk on the island. Enjoy your vacation." But they lie. It's not a vacation. I thought I'd be able to just explore the island, maybe go hang gliding or ride a boat around. But no, people were still shooting at me, just like in the rest of the difficulty levels!

They need a mode where you can start out on your boat, then you approach an island.

"Ahoy there!" say the mercenaries, who are on the beach playing cards. "We just made some coffee. Want some?"

Meanwhile, Val is sunning herself on the beach and looks up as you approach. "Hey Jack!" she says. "Want to come windsurfing with me?"

Then another mercenary comes up and says "Hey guys! You won't believe this, but I just found the ruins of an ancient civilisation on the other side of the island! Let's go look around it!"

That would be fun. No enemies, just exploration and activities. There could be some goal-oriented gameplay, like "get to the most scenic vista and take a picture", but there doesn't need to be. Like in Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where you can always go back and play the fishing game, or go horseback riding. On a real tropical island, there are plenty of outdoor activities that people do just for fun, without any goals. How hard would that have been to include, even if they only meant it as a joke? Even a simple mod could accomplish something like this. The scenery in this game is so pleasant and enjoyable, why can't we have a way to just leisurely go around and enjoy it instead of having to run through blowing things up?

Heh, perhaps I should have written about my much more rewarding experience playing Thief 3.

Addendum:
A little research on the subject reveals that indeed the PC version of Prisoner of Azkaban is quite different and much more limited than the console version. How irritating.

Labels: games, review

Upon reflection, after seeing the teaser trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, it seems they're promoting it wrong. I know full well that every iteration of the story has had differences, from radio to book to TV to computer game to comics, etc. But if I were to describe the story (any of them) to someone, the phrase "the most astonishing adventure in the universe" doesn't come to mind.

I've always thought of it primarily as a comedy with adventure elements. The comedy comes from several places, but since visual adaptations don't have the benefit of DNA's (Douglas Adams') wordplay, what we're left with is primarily the concept of bizarre occurrances being dealt with in a sedated British everyman style. This can be done well and successfully, as seen recently in a different genre with the British film Shaun of the Dead, so it's quite possible that the movie itself does this, but the teaser trailer is trying to market it at a different audience. We shall see.

Labels: review

I just watched the movie The Butterfly Effect, which I thought was well-done. Interesting, gripping, well-acted, and satisfying. There were a number of nitpicks I had to overlook in deciding it was a good movie, such as the mixing of non-sequitur causality (Minkowski "block universe" theory -- 12 Monkeys flawlessly used this version of time travel) with a parallel-reality-shifting sort of "the past can be changed" idea. Both are perfectly okay, but not together, as you can see if you watch the movie.

Anyway, I'll keep away from spoliers to deliver this message, because I think it's an important one. After watching the movie and checking the IMDb message board for it as I often do for movies I enjoy, I was appalled to see people bringing up a Simpsons episode, and claiming the movie was based on that...SERIOUSLY. I've seen the episode. Before that, in grade school, I read the short story A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. That is what the Simpsons episode was based on.

Apart from the title, actually, and the idea that a small change in the past can have a large effect in the future, there wasn't really that much of a connection between A Sound of Thunder and The Butterfly Effect, or even that Simpsons episode. But I swear, I'm sick and tired of seeing people make wild claims about movies being based on some other form of visual media. Read books, people!

In fact, here, just read the story. It's short. A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury (1952).

And I thought I'd gotten over people thinking that the ideas in The Matrix were original. I'm sure to anyone reading this, I don't actually need to mention Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson and all the others who created the whole setting and world used there, even including the term "the matrix" to describe that virtual world... Oh, I just did. Sorry.

Labels: rant, review