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January 24, 2005
A handful of dust.
(This post is the third in a series looking back at some of my favorite comics of all-time. The first installment covered Watchmen, and the second looked at "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?")I first discovered Neil Gaiman's Sandman many, many moons ago when I was a somewhat impressionable adolescent, obsessively attempting to read everything Alan Moore had ever written. My Moore-addiction didn't go unnoticed by my local comics retailer, who suggested I check out this relatively new series called Sandman. Being the trusting sort (this was the same store owner who pointed me towards Swamp Thing, so I'd have bought Casper the Friendly Ghost if he told me it was dark and brooding) I purchased a slipcase containing the first two collections, with a space for the third. I still have that slipcase...it was designed by Dave McKean (of course), and while it's been beaten up more than a little over the years, it's still pretty cool.
Regardless, The Sandman turned out to be more than just another horror comic. As a teenager with odd obsessions with mythology, religion and comics, it was in many ways The Perfect Comic for me. Read on for my full thoughts on a fresh re-read through the entire series, from Preludes & Nocturnes straight through The Wake (and beyond).
January 16, 2005
Review: The Bard's Tale.
My review of The Bard's Tale is up over at Shackreviews...while I enjoyed its parody of RPG cliches, I found it to be a pretty average game overall. Here's a quick excerpt:Probably the only significant bit of gameplay branching in The Bard's Tale comes at the end of the game. Much like the two Deus Ex games before it, The Bard's Tale has multiple endings that are determined purely by your decisions at the very end of the game. This is nice because it means it's reasonably easy to see every ending, but at the same time, it means the rest of the game is very linear (for an example of a better way to do this, see Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic). I won't spoil anything here, but at the end you're basically given a choice to be Good, Bad or Indifferent. The first two give you completely different boss fights and endings, but the last one (and I think this was very clever) actually lets you walk away. As in, throw up your hands and take the easy way out. I can't remember ever seeing a game that let you do that before, and I laughed out loud over that.Head over to Shackreviews to read the whole thing.
December 19, 2004
The greatest Superman story ever told.
(This post is the second in a series looking back at some of my favorite comics of all-time. The first installment, looking back on Watchmen, can be found here)Every now and then, on message boards, newsgroups, or at conventions or any other random gathering of comics geeks, the question of what is the Greatest <comic character name here> Story Ever Written. Now, I'm not sure what the greatest Spider-Man story ever written is (if I had to guess, I'd say either the Death of Gwen Stacy or Fearful Symmetry, but I'm hardly an expert) and I think I have an idea of what the greatest Batman story is, but there's one thing I have absolutely no doubts about in any way, shape or form: "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, George Perez and Kurt Schaffenberger, most certainly is the Greatest Superman Story Ever Written. Read on to find out why.
December 05, 2004
Definitely worth the wait.
My review of Half-Life 2 has gone up over at ShackReviews. While I think it's a great, even brilliant game, I don't hesitate to point out its various flaws. Here's an excerpt, dealing with the headache that is Steam:I would be remiss if I didn’t take a few minutes to talk about Steam, Valve’s highly touted e-delivery platform. I like Steam on paper, and my version of the game was purely delivered by Steam, but the technology needs some time to get the kinks worked out. On my machine at the office it worked great, and I was playing Counter-Strike: Source in no time. But at home, where I wanted to play the single player game, I had quite a few problems. I quickly discovered that leaving Steam running in the background was a surefire way to make my entire machine come to a screeching halt. If it was updating a game while I was trying to do anything, it would crash my machine. Repeatedly. Also, I found the game would periodically hang on those “Loading…” screens. Once the game loaded it ran great on my X800 pro, staying at a solid minimum of 60 FPS, and dropping only occasionally (it’s worth pointing out that this is far better performance than I saw in Doom 3), but getting there was a bit of a headache. I’m sure these problems will all be worked out eventually, but as of right now, it’s a work-in-progress.Read the whole thing over at Shacknews.
November 24, 2004
I watches the Watchmen.
In preparing to sell off large portions of my comic book collection, I naturally had to go through and pick out the good stuff...that is, all the stuff I wanted to actually keep. While I am selling off about 95% of my collection, I'm keeping a nice collection of trades and graphic novels that I can't imagine parting with. This includes my beloved complete run of Taboo, my signed & numbered hardcover collection of Dave McKean's Cages, my nearly complete set of Cerebus phone books (they go up to "Going Home"), the complete Transmetropolitan and so on. And of course, this also includes most of the works of Alan Moore.In pulling all of this stuff out, I got a bit nostalgic, so I recently re-read some of my favorite comics of all-time: V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. V and Dark Knight each require their own entry (which I intend to do eventually), but today I'm going to talk about Watchmen, a book that has only gotten better with age. I'm going to specifically talk in-depth about the ending and how it reads post-9/11, so if you've never read it, don't click below. But if you have, read on for my thoughts on re-reading this classic of graphic literature.
November 16, 2004
Homina homina homina.
While I absolutely hate putting down a game before I'm finished with it, I made an exception this evening after deciding that the unnamable game I was playing was so long (but so good) that I didn't want to simply rush through it so I could play Half-Life 2. I was able to hold out for Halo 2 (and will continue to do so -- once I'm done with Half-Life, I intend to go back to that other game), but the call of Half-Life 2 was too much to ignore. So I spent a couple of hours playing it this evening.By now you've already heard this a billion times, but I'm going to say it again anyway: this game is amazing. Simply amazing. Doom 3 looked great on my new video card and certainly justified getting it, but the framerate wavered a lot, especially when there were multiple enemies on screen. Half-Life 2 doesn't have that problem. It doesn't run at 60 all the time, but I'd say at least 75% of the time it is. And good god, is it ever stunning to look at.
I'll refrain from any more impressions...after all, I'm just a couple of hours in. But it's something special, that much I can safely say already.
November 14, 2004
Review: Logitech Cordless Precision Controller for Xbox
I was so enamored with the Logitech Cordless Action Controller for PS2 I picked up a few weeks ago, that when I heard Logitech had released a second-generation wireless gamepad for Xbox, I ran out and picked that one up too. And sure enough, it's pretty much the Xbox equivalent of the PS2 controller. It's a huge step up from the batarang-esque first-generation gamepad, and just like the PS2 controller is closely modeled after the DualShock, the Xbox one is modeled after the Controller S. This is a good thing, of course. Like the PS2 controller, it features excellent control, force-feedback, killer battery life (50 hours -- with force feedback -- off just two AA batteries), and is easily among the best third party controllers I've ever used.
I do have two small complaints about this one though. The first, is that while the gamepad itself has gotten significantly smaller and easier to manage from the original Xbox wireless controller, the base station has not. I realize that this is so the base station retains the dual-port expansion slots from the stock Xbox controllers, but it just makes it much bulkier than the svelte box that attaches to the PS2. The second is not really a fault of the gamepad, but just a problem with using a wireless controller with the Xbox -- if you want to use Microsoft's Xbox Live headset, you need to plug in a wired controller. Logitech's Cordless Headset for Xbox ships this week, and I might just round up all my now useless wired gamepads and sell them back to my local GameStop in order to get this instead. Being completely free of wires is so great, that it's a real step backwards every time I go to play on Xbox Live.
But really, those are minor complaints. This is a great piece of hardware, and I can just as easily recommend it as I can its PS2 counterpart. It's taken a while, but there are finally top-notch wireless controllers available for PS2 and Xbox. My GameCube is still out of luck, as I won't use the force-feedbackless WaveBird, but I use my GameCube so rarely these days, that it's not much of a loss.
October 31, 2004
Review: Logitech Cordless Action Controller for PS2
Although I do absolutely love my Dual Shock controllers to death, I also have a tendency to use them to death. I have two converter boxes that let me use PS* controllers on my computers, I can't live without my GameCube Joybox, and that's not even counting all those damn RPGs I play on my PS2. And while I do believe the Dual Shock 2 is the best gamepad ever made, it is not necessarily the most durable. I think Microsoft did a stellar job with the Xbox Controller S in terms of sheer durability, but the Dual Shock 2 has a thin and easily worn out cable, and those sticks get pretty loose and wonky after several years of heavy use.
With that all-important game I can't talk about occupying so much of my time lately, I decided to finally get a new controller for my PS2, as my two original launch PS2 gamepads are on their last legs. While I've always been down on any wireless remote, Logitech finally hit on the perfect formula with the Cordless Action Controller for PS2. Read on for my full review.
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October 24, 2004
*grumble grumble grumble*
(Or how I escaped from Butcher Bay and lived to tell the tale)My review of Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is up over at ShackReviews. I was delightfully surprised at how much I liked Riddick, even though I had relatively high expectations. Here's an excerpt from my review:
Riddick (as I will refer to it from now on, as the full title doesn't exactly roll off the tongue) is an interesting animal. It borrows quite liberally from games like Deus Ex and Half-Life, but it does so gracefully. This is a stealth-light FPS like Deus Ex, but it's also just as much a pure FPS like Half-Life. And if you're going to swipe from someone, it might as well be those two, which are among the very best games from the last five years.Head over to teh Shack to read the whole thing.
October 03, 2004
When hype goes awry.
My ShackReview of Fable has gone up over at Shacknews...here's an excerpt:When it was first announced over three years ago, Peter Molyneux told everyone that Fable, then known only as “Project Ego” would quite simply be, “the greatest RPG ever made.” Of course the idea behind the game he was talking about was (and this is a direct quote from Dene Carter of Big Blue Box), “simply to allow the player to evolve his own unique character and to ensure that nearly all decisions and actions he takes have some effect on the world, its opinions, and even its physical makeup.” Had they actually created that game, perhaps it would have been the greatest RPG of all-time, or at the very least a truly groundbreaking one. Sadly, the game that was released as Fable bares little resemblance to that idea. It’s not a bad game to be sure, and in fact, it’s quite fun at times. But sadly it’s neither groundbreaking nor particularly original, and many, if not most of its original concepts have any affect whatsoever on its gameplay, world or inhabitants.Head over to Shacknews to read the whole thing.
September 26, 2004
Review: Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon
New adventure games are pretty rare, so the release of a new one from Revolution should be cause for celebration. Naturally I'm a little late to the party with this one (the game's been out for the better part of a year already), but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth the wait. My full review's up over at ShackReviews, but here's a quick excerpt:The move to 3D has caused for some changes to the general format of the game, but by and large, the gameplay is quite similar to the first two. Like the second game, you'll control both George and Nico at different times, although you'll never have to switch back and forth between the two, and it's split about 60/40 in George's favor (maybe a little more). Incidentally, just like the second game, the game opens with George and Nico far apart from each other. I actually like that they’ve done this twice already…somehow their relationship seems more sophisticated and interesting if they haven’t settled down into marital bliss between games.Head over to Shacknews for the full review.Regardless of who you're controlling at any given time, you'll walk around looking for clues, talking with characters using Revolution's preferred method of icon-based dialogue choices, and solving puzzles. Because of the move to 3D, you'll find yourself having to solve quite a few by pushing around boxes and crates. While this may conjure up images of the lame box puzzles in games like Tomb Raider and Soul Reaver, rest assured that these are actually pretty clever (or at least as clever as you can get with a box puzzle). Having said that, the sound effects when moving those boxes around are a bit harsh. I mean I realize that they're heavy, but I was afraid poor George was going to give himself a hernia by the end of the game.
September 19, 2004
The blog post of the review of The Batman.
Although I was initially quite scared by the prospect of a new Batman series, seeing a quick teaser for The Batman at this year's San Diego Comic Con convinced me that it might not be all together awful, and in fact might be pretty good. I've now seen two episodes, and I'm starting to think it's the latter, although there are still quite a few characters to be revealed. Yep, it's a twofer review Sunday...read on for my full review of the show so far.
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Good, but no System Shock 2.
My Doom 3 review went up over at ShackReviews this afternoon...here's an excerpt:Not too long ago, I played a really scary game. It was played from a first person perspective and took place on a haunted space station inhabited by zombies, mutants and other creepy creatures, and was a truly terrifying experience.Read the whole thing over at teh Shack.That game was System Shock 2.
Doom 3 is many things, and at its best, it is indeed a little bit scary. But it’s hardly the scariest game I’ve ever played. It’s not even in the top three.
But really, who cares? id Software may not have created a game I wasn’t able to finish because of how freaked out I was (to date there’s only one game that can claim that: Thief: The Dark Project, and that’s just because of the zombies). But what they have done is crafted an exceptionally polished game that’s fun, and is easily the best looking game I’ve ever seen.
(P.S.: Yarr!)
August 24, 2004
Whoever wins, fans lose.
Yep, I've seen Alien vs. Predator and lived to tell the tale. Read on for the full review, or actually just the fanboi bitchfest it turned out to be (sorry, but I'm a fan...what do you want me to do?).
August 10, 2004
Bloody brilliant.
I'm out here on the lesser coast this week, which has prevented me from trying out Doom 3 (which I picked up just as I had to leave...oh cruel fate), but I've still managed to write up my ShackReview of Painkiller, one of the best shooters I've played in years. If you liked Serious Sam but thought it needed to be merged with Mr. Pants' Excessive Overkill, this is the game for you. Here's an excerpt:Painkiller isn’t the greatest game I’ve ever played, but it’s certainly one of the most pure and fun first person shooters ever made. It’s so simple, and so over-the-top, that rather than be a short stop on my journey to Doom 3, I found myself having the time of my life. Enough so, that I opted to wait a week to start playing Doom 3 (allowing me to finish Painkiller and also return from a business trip).Head over to Shacknews to read the whole thing.If you haven’t seen the game yet, it’s a pretty simple idea. Developer People Can Fly has distilled the first person shooter genre down to its bare essentials. You run, you shoot and you occasionally jump, but that’s it. No use key, no NPCs, no puzzles, nothing. Just lots of running and lots of shooting.
July 05, 2004
Sci-fi swan songs.
Well it's a holiday weekend, and while some people use this time to sleep or see others, I like to spend my free time writing. So that's just what I did this afternoon.As most of you should know by now, I'm something of a sci-fi buff. I love sci-fi novels, movies and possibly most of all, sci-fi series television. Thanks to the wonders of DVD (and Netflix in one case) I recently watched through three of my favorite series of all-time straight through (over the course of many, many, many months -- not all in one sitting!): The X-Files, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Babylon 5. So just for the heck of it, I present a head-to-head-to-head comparison of the three series. Not in total, mind you, but merely their last seasons. It's pretty long, so read on for the whole thing.
June 20, 2004
Review: Deus Ex: Invisible War
My review of Deus Ex: Invisible War has gone up over at ShackReviews. Here's your token excerpt:Among us shackers (and seeing as how I’m no longer an employee I find myself as just another lay shacker myself these days), ShackHype is a dangerous and fickle thing. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of middle ground…when a game comes out, it’s either the greatest thing since sliced bread (or Counter-Strike, whichever you think is a more significant invention) or it’s a steaming load of somethingorother. ShackHype has been responsible for pointing me towards several truly amazing games (Battlefield 1942 comes to mind immediately), but as Deus Ex: Invisible War proves pretty conclusively, ShackHype is not law. The hype on this game was largely negative, which lowered my expectations significantly. On the plus side, this meant that the resulting game (which I enjoyed quite a bit) was a pleasant surprise. But at the same time, there are lots of Shackers who skipped the game because of the ‘hype, and to be perfectly blunt, it’s their own damn fault, because while it’s a bit flawed, it’s a fun experience, and a solid and thoroughly enjoyable sequel to a great game.
May 31, 2004
Review: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
If you read my first impressions of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance you already know what to expect, but nonetheless, my full review has gone up over at Shacknews. It is, naturally, overwhelmingly positive. After so many large disappointments lately, it was nice to have a pleasant surprise. As I've been doing lately, it's posted in its entirety over there, but here's a quick excerpt:I must admit, going into it, I certainly never expected to really like Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance all that much. Oh sure, people have been telling me for years that this is a great, great game, but I saw that Baldur’s Gate logo and immediately figured that it wasn’t for me. But then I stumbled across the game on sale for around $10, and well…the bargain hunter in me simply couldn’t resist. And what a bargain it turned out to be! Incredibly, not only is this game a ton of fun, but it looks as good today as it did (presumably) when it was first released nearly three years ago.
May 16, 2004
Review: Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
I've just posted my latest review over at Shacknews, this time looking at Revolution's Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. You may recall my recent complaints with the buggy GBA version of the game, but after that debacle I picked up the CD-ROM version of the game from Sold-Out and started over using ScummVM, and that was a much better experience. Anyway, go read it for my full thoughts on the game, and here's a quick excerpt:I suppose the true test for any adventure game is how well it’s stood up over the years, and Broken Sword has stood up perfectly. The gameplay wasn’t gimmicky and never relied on large numbers of non-interactive sequences, so the game remains every bit as much fun now as it was then. And thanks to ScummVM, it’s easily accessible on any platform supported by the emulator. Adventure games may have fallen out of popularity of late, but that’s no reason why even the most jaded gamer can’t enjoy a classic title from the mid-90’s. I can’t believe it took me this long to find and play Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, but boy am I glad I finally did. It’s not just a great game, it’s one of the finest adventure games I’ve ever played – and I’ve played a whole lot of them over the years.
April 25, 2004
Review: Final Fantasy X-2
Since I no longer have a way to post this for comments on Shacknews, I might as well do it here...my ShackReview of Final Fantasy X-2 has gone up. I gave a slight preview of what to expect here yesterday, but the full review goes into far more detail about the issues I have with the game. Here's a quick excerpt:After completing Final Fantasy X, Squaresoft (now Square Enix) faced a pretty formidable problem: the next game in the series, Final Fantasy XI, was being developed as a massively multiplayer game (don’t even get me started with that logic…why they couldn’t just call the damn thing Final Fantasy Online is beyond me). Which is all fine and good, but that meant Square would have no single player Final Fantasy until FFXII, which was quite a ways off. And so the decision was made to produce what can only be described as Final Fantasy on a Budget, or as it was titled on its release, Final Fantasy X-2.FFX-2 really is Final Fantasy on a Budget. Corners were cut in every conceivable way, and the result is a cheap feeling game, with a shoestring storyline that exists only to connect the various side-quests that are passed off as core objectives.
March 15, 2004
Review: Memories
Many years ago (okay, only about six or seven years), I attended a screening at SVA held by that school's anime society, of Memories, an anthology film by Akira director and creator Katsuhiro Otomo. The film was quite good, but there was one small problem: it was entirely in Japanese with no subtitles. Memories is an anthology of short stories, and of the three, I was able to enjoy each of them with varying degrees of success. I had already read the comic that the first story was based on, so while I couldn't understand the dialogue, I at least knew what was going on. The second was pretty straightforward, and slapstick comedy knows no language barriers, so I was able to get by there. The last one, unfortunately, was complete gibberish without any subtitles. But I did enjoy the film, and waited for the inevitable release, with subtitles and/or English dialogue, in North America.
Incredibly, year after year went by with no localized release. I briefly considered modding my DVD player and importing the Japanese release (which did have English subtitles, if I remember correctly), but ultimately decided that someday, someone would have to realize that anything by the creator of Akira would have enough of an audience in this country to make it worth the time and costs necessary to translate it.
It took a damn long time, but Memories is finally out in this country, complete with glorious English subtitles.
March 08, 2004
Review: Underworld
It sort of goes without saying, but the words "Kate Beckinsale" and "form-fitting costume" should be all any movie needs to be, if not actually decent, then certainly at the very least, watchable. But then a movie like Underworld comes along and proves that not only is no amount of leather applied to the shapely Ms. Beckinsale enough to make the movie worth sitting through, but the presence of vampires, werewolves and the delightfully gothic backdrop of Budapest aren't even enough to save this utter waste of time.
Underworld began with an interesting enough concept: there is a centuries-old war being waged by clans of vampires against clans of werewolves, which are known here as "lycans", a term derived from lycanthropy, the psychological disorder in which a person believes he or she has the characteristics of a wolf or other animal. The general idea here is that a vampire falls in love with a werewolf, and the story is basically West Side Story with vampires and werewolves. Like any great team-up, this has fanboy cred written all over it. Vampires feeding on werewolves? Werewolves munching on some vampire flesh? And the potential for hot vampire-werewolf love scenes? How could this possibly go wrong?
February 03, 2004
Manga Revisited
Following the advice posted in the comments from Augie De Blieck Jr, I picked up a couple of Manga books using my credit at Midtown Comics. My reviews of each follow below.February 02, 2004
Review: Comic Book: The Movie (DVD)
This past weekend I watched Comic Book: The Movie on DVD (and many of its extra features), and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a big one, so read on for the full review.
December 23, 2003
Review: Belkin Hi-Speed 8-in-1 Media Reader
One of the more annoying things about having so many electronic devices is that they all use different kinds of media for storing data. My Clie uses Sony's Memory Stick, my camera uses Compact Flash, Tapwave's Zodiac uses SD/MMC, and so on. Even with the Missing Sync, getting my Clie's Memory Stick to mount in OS X is a real pain, and terribly unreliable to boot, and I hate the fact that I can't charge my camera and download photos at the same time. So I decided to get one of those nifty (and super cheap) USB media readers.
I decided on Belkin's Hi-Speed 8-in-1 Media Reader because it was cheap, and also because it supports Magic Gate Memory Sticks (not all do). Plus it supports USB 2.0, which although I don't have on any Macs, I do have on my game PC.
Like any USB media reader, this is a very simple device. It's very small, smaller than my camera and only slightly thicker than my Clie. It has no moving parts, and consists entirely of an attractive silver and black unit with a type-B USB port on the back. This is a USB 2.0 device, but of course it's fully backwards compatible.
The "8-in-1" monicker refers to the fact that it reads CompactFlash I/II, SmartMedia, SD/MMC, IBM Microdrive, Memory Stick/Magic Gate Memory Stick. In reality, that's just four (Microdrives are just Compact Flash cards). But who cares...it reads everything I need it to. There are no drivers to install (for OS X, anyway), so it's just plug-in-and-go. Putting in the Memory Stick from my Clie mounted it instantly on my desktop (about three times as fast as the procedure for mounting it while connected to my PDA), and inserting the Compact Flash card from my camera launched iPhoto. Sweeeet.
This is one of those readers that doesn't plug directly into a USB port, but instead uses a cable. While the ones that go right into a USB port are nice, they're not at all practical for desktop machines, and the direct kind also tend to only read one or two kinds of media. Plus they tend to be ugly, and this is a nice looking bit of hardware.
And that's all there is to it. It's small, attractive, and does what it's supposed to do. Belkin sells it directly for the obscene price of $59.99, but that's insane for a device with no moving parts. I was able to pick it up for less than 1/3rd of that price shipped (I got mine from Dell of all places), which is comparable to USB 1.0 media readers. A media reader isn't something that's totally necessary, but it is nice and convenient, and this is a darn good one.
December 08, 2003
Some of my favorite apps.
The idea for this post was shamelessly ripped off from Karelia, makers of Watson (which is of course on the list below). But anyway, one of the great things about Macs is the huge number of genuinely useful shareware programs that are available. My system is super-customized, thanks to a handful of various apps, many of which are listed below.December 01, 2003
Machines rise, expectations fall.
Over the holiday weekend, aside from lots and lots of Counter-Strike and imbibing large amounts of heavenly foodstuffs, I watched Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I'm a big fan of the Terminator series, particularly the second one, which I think is probably the best pure action movie ever made (with Die Hard a possible close second). Without the involvement of James Cameron, I wasn't expecting much from this sequel, and it turns out that's probably a good thing. T3 ain't bad, but it's certainly not in the same league as its predecessor.
November 17, 2003
When video games imitate Woody Allen gags.
Woody Allen's great Annie Hall opens with the following dialogue:There's an old joke. Uh, two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of 'em says: "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and such ... small portions."
This has been on my mind a lot lately, as it seems like the last two games I've played through have been woefully short. Not so much with Max Payne 2 (which has a fine, delicate taste to it, even if it is painfully short) but last night I finished Age of Mythology: The Titans, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
To be clear, The Titans isn't a bad add-on by any means. But it's extremely short, the gameplay is only mildly different from the core campaign, and even at $30 it's overpriced. The Titans feels like half the game was left out to meet the holiday rush. The story never really resolves itself, and the titular Titans have a remarkably minor impact on the gameplay.
One of the cardinal rules of interesting storytelling is that you can't have everything go according to the stated plans. If the plan is to go in, kill the guards and rescue the girl, something has to go wrong. Otherwise there's no tension. The super big huge bad guy has to block the door on your way out, the main character discovers that his gun won't work, or after rescuing the girl the main character accidentally trips a bomb that's set to go off in ten seconds!! And yet, that's basically what happens in The Titans' campaign. There's no girl to be rescued (and there certainly isn't a bomb), but the plan is to raise a Titan to combat another one and then defeat the bad guy, and imagine my surprise when that's all that happens. Whee. There's never even any explanation given for Arkantos' miraculous reappearance from the beyond.
I happen to like short games in general, but this was a game that wasn't just short, it felt unfinished. If you want proof of that, yesterday afternoon I declared on Shacknews, "I'm a little disappointed at how little the Titans have affected the gameplay. In truth, I'm only about halfway through it, so I imagine their role will be beefed up significantly as I move forward". Imagine my surprise when that evening, after about an hour of gameplay, the credits started to roll.
Age of Mythology is the first "Age" game that I've ever played, so I have no idea if the add-ons for the other games were equally short. But although I may have issues with WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, at least that offered a good 15 - 20 hours of gameplay. The Titans gave me about half that, and even then it's only because of a couple of particularly tricky missions (the subsequent ones were comparatively easy...go fig).
Oh well. Next up for me is Rockstar's Manhunt. Hopefully that'll give me at least two weeks of solid gameplay.
November 06, 2003
Smallville is teh suck.
Okay, not really. I actually like the show a lot. But last night's episode? Good lord was that horrible. Keep reading for my full review (it's a bit too long to put on the main page).October 08, 2003
Review: Snatcher for Sega CD
As I did with my review of Ys Book I & II for the Turbo CD, I'm posting my review of Snatcher for the Sega CD here, as we don't go that far back in our reviews database over at Shacknews. Read on for the whole darn thing.
September 30, 2003
Review: Ys Book I & II
As the ShackReviews database over at Shacknews doesn't go back past the 32-bit era, I've decided to post my review of Ys Book I & II for the Turbo Grafx CD/TurboDuo here. So read on for the review in its entirety.
July 15, 2003
Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
So yes, I did indeed see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night, and it did indeed suck. What a shame.
The biggest problem with the movie is a fundamental one: they tried to make it into a mass-market property, which it's not. Kids will be turned off by the fact that they've never heard of these characters, and adults won't be thrilled at the fact that the edge has been taken away.
But that's not the only problem here, not by a long shot. The two additions to the team, Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray, are pointless and disappointing respectively. Sawyer is there for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And not only that, but they don't even attempt to give him a reason for being there. He just shows up, says he's from the CIA, and that's the end of it. There isn't a single reference to anything from his past. And how could there be? He's Tom freaking' Sawyer for god's sake...he has no reason for being there!
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"Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"
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