Like a screen door on a submarine....

So, I grabbed the Killzone 2 demo off PSN late late late last night. For those not in the know, in a silly bit of retail gamesmanship, if you pre-ordered Killzone via Gamestop, you could download the demo early on Feb 5. All others have to wait till the Feb 26 to grab it. The game comes out the 27^th. Wouldn’t you want to get the demo out early, especially in light of the (overly) enthusiastic reviews ? However, the demo was made available to all PSN Europe users yesterday, for some reason. All you need to do is setup a Euro PSN account. Its free and it takes 5 minutes to setup.

Thoughts:

-Freakin short demo and doesn’t build to a good payoff to get you hooked for the full version. You literally walk through a door and a cute outro video plays (Ballet of Death)

-Yes, it looks very very good.

-The main artistic achievement is/are the guns. Easily the best looking FP weapons I’ve ever seen. Beautiful use of post processing, sweet animations, AWESOME sound, awesome muzzle flashes yadda yadda yadda.

-Really cool FX all around

-Sense of weight and mass is very impressive. The guns don’t feel light and flimsy.

-Shooting dudes looks and feels great. Love the hit “pings”, gouts of blood, and ragdolls

-Characters look good, not amazing, but very well done.

-Opening scripted sequence (beach landing of the future complete with inanely designed FUTURE Higgins Boat) is really really impressive

-Demo is broken up into 2 very brief segments. Part one is a beach landing and LZ securing op. This part is straight up CoD 4. Bad guys pop up where scripted like turrets, nothing happens till you move forward and trigger the next volume. 2^nd segment is a warehouse fight that is ever so slightly Halo-esque. Bad guys do a fair bit of displacing and maneuvering, try to get behind cover, flush you out with grenades. Combat Space 101 design though: Red explosive canisters and barrels EVERYWHERE.

-Controls are going to be the sticking point with everyone and rightfully so. They are, at least by default, very sluggish. It certainly adds a sense of mass and helps keep you rooted in the world, but it makes shooting tricky. Helps that the PS3 controller sucks balls for FPS. You can aim down the iron sights (which look awesome BTW) but the default button for this (R3) felt weird.

-Cover system ala Rainbow Six Vegas. Hold L2 when near a wall and you go into cover. Doesn’t yank out to 3^rd person though, which I liked. Works ok, but it seemed difficult at first combo-ing the cover button with the iron sights view.

-Melee button and animation aren’t very good.

-Lighting is great. Really nice optical effects with god rays punching through clouds of smoke and dust.

Overall, pretty cool. Not mind blowing in the least, and I would argue that Gears 2 is still the best looking game out right now.

This place crawls...

Brief reaction to the much talked about Resident Evil 5 demo on 360:

I loved LOVED RE4 but more for the totality of the experience and since it was unlike anything on consoles at the time and a complete reboot of the Resident Evil franchise. Playing it again on PS2 a short time after playing the GC original, the awkward controls certainly dimmed my nostalgia a bit.

RE5 is pretty hampered if not crippled by its controls. In the wake of Dead Space and even Gears of War, the controls feel antiquated and exclusionary. Though I appreciate the intensity of the experience, Dead Space showed that you can have a perfectly fluid, intuitive interface and maintain intensity. Switching to a more shooter centric control scheme would rob the game of nothing.
I’ll still play the full version, since I’m still a fan of the series, but my enthusiasm is dimmed.

Looks fuckin awesome though

Like The Stars In The Sky...

Anyone remember Dances With Wolves ?
Yeah. Dances With Wolves.
These days, I think most critics look back on this film, not necessarily with disdain but with indifference. Sure it was a Best Picture winner, was a box office hit, made the Western popular (at least for awhile) but the films place in history is marred by two things : early 90's political correctness and...Kevin Costner.
Remember, once upon a time, Costner was a superstar. If memory serves, he made this right after Robin Hood, which was a smash hit, and for this follow up, Costner not only took top billing, but directed and produced. And it was his first movie. And it was a smash hit. And it won Best Picture. And Costner was knighted an Honorary Native American. Not too shabby.
And then he made WaterWorld.
And that, as they say, was that.

So anyhoo, this isn't a retrospective on Dances With Wolves, but an observation of a scene from the film that ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF in a recent viewing. It was a scene I had seen many times before, hadn't thought about in any particular way. But catching the film recently on tv, I couldn't help but be blown away by this moment.
The Buffalo Hunt
This sequence in the film is pure bona fide bravura film making. Y'know the saying "They don't make em like they used to". That was coined for stuff like The Buffalo Hunt.
Go rent the movie, borrow it, whatever and when you watch that sequence, remember this:
No CG
Actual freakin' buffalo, folks riding real horses, and cameras and camera trucks right in the deadly middle.
A-frakkin-mazing

Get going, you have homework

I'll Be Home for Christmas ? or Welcome to the New World, Capt Ramius

Well, as some may know, I had a pretty funky holiday to the cap off the year.
I was SUPPOSED to fly out to Indiana to visit with the fam but a monster snow storm blanketed the Puget Sound area and kiboshed my trip home. Not only that, it effectively shutdown the city, since A.) Seattle-ites have NO idea how to drive or deal with winter weather (well, mostly) and B.) the city of Seattle REALLY has no idea how to deal with severe winter weather. Put it to ya this way, there are TWENTY SEVEN snow plows in ALL of Western Washington (I think). The end result, of course, is that nature was tasked with "clearing" the roads. Sigh. So not only did I miss my flight, but I was effectively sealed in my home along with most of the city. However, all was not lost. For one, I had my good buddy Bo to keep me company. And it may have been kismet that I missed the trip back to Indiana, since little Bo developed a nasty infection on one of his paws and had to be taken to the vet. Dont worry, he's perfectly fine and back in top, furry, shape but....I wonder what would've happen had I not picked him up early from the sitter. Hrmmm. Three legged dog much ?
Anyway, the setback caused me to miss only the second Xmas away from my family, ever. We're a pretty tight knit group, the Nattam clan, and holidays are ususally held in pretty strong regard. So missing Christmas can feel pretty odd. However I made do. My good friend Gautam was kind enough to have me over for Christmas dinner, got some snowboarding in with my c0-workers Niles and Alex (more to come, interesting activity snowboarding), and capped it all off with what ended up being a really fun New Years, probably the most fun New Years I've had in...ages ? Nice dinner with friends, watch the ball drop at a rowdy Irish pub, and then run off to meet another group of friends at another bar. Everybody's happy :) Doesnt sound like much, sure, but there was more to it, and it's always nice to be able to ring in the new year with good friends.

All in all, looking back at 2008, I'd say I had a heckuva year. Not to brag on myself or anything, but I made some interesting (profound ?) progress over the past twelve months. Bought a house, got a dog, got back into the social mix (yeah), had a ton of fun at work and was able to develop my skills furthur (I think and hope), got into oil painting more, pursued personal art projects at home. And I was able to end the year in such a way as to at least allow for some intrigue going into 2009. That's how I'll leave thatfor now :P

How did 2008 treat y'all ?

The Games Afoot

As its unseasonably freezing here in Seattle, here's a brief post to be followed by elaboration. So I think I've plowed through most of this season's main attraction, triple A, video game releases.
Quick thoughts:
Dead Space - Awesome. Fantastic visuals, bloody satisfying gameplay. A little repetitive, some silly bosses and minigames, but a fine entertainment nonetheless
Fallout 3 - Warts and all, one of the year's best. Sure the visuals arent quite up to snuff with some of the years other titles, but the gameplay is damn fun and completely engrossing.
Left 4 Dead - My personal favorite. Sure there isn't THAT much content (don't bother playing solo) but I've had more hysterical, memorable, "cinematic" moments playing this game more then just about any other.

Gears 2 - Bloody gorgeous, fun Horde mode, but for some reason this didnt stick with me. Its a good game to be sure. Just...something missing.
Resistance 2 - Didnt care for the campaign much. Some nice visuals, variety in locations, neat scripted moments but some frustrating design decisions (one hit kill enemies, for starters). More so then Gears 2, something was really, really off putting in Resistance 2. Co-Op was fun till I tried Left 4 Dead and Horde. After those, it felt kind of simplistic and flat. More to come...
Fable 2 -Awful. One of the worst games of the year
Far Cry 2 - Awful. One of the worst games of the year
Mirror's Edge - A really, really mixed bag. Loved the look and core sense of first person parkour, but the level design almost kiboshes the whole works. Playtest your shit, y'all.
Call of Duty: World at War - Mildly amusing campaign mode, with some decent scripted moments. The unlockable zombie mode though, is the real reason to check this out.
Prince of Persia - Interesting, frustration free design but ultimately too repetitive and kind of boring
Little Big Planet - Haven't completely runthrough it, but it looks charming as hell and fun to check out what people have created BUT I find the core mechanics of moving Sackboy around to be somewhat frustrating. Now if he moved more like Mario.... :)

K, that was longer then I intended. I'll elaborate a bit more as the year comes to and end and try to cover the year that was.
Allez !

Werewolf Barmitzvah !

Damn the new Netflix app that MS added to the NXE for 360 !! Good christ, the nerd-dom expressed in the prior sentence....
Anyhoo, I finally started using the handy dandy Netflix streaming app this past weekend. My stream of choice: the tv show 30 Rock. I caught the pilot of this a few years back and didn't think much of it. It came out at the same time as a similarly themed show (anyone remember Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip ? Uggh, yeah me neither). I had written both off as too high concept (SNL style show within a show) and quite frankly not funny enough to carry the weight of the idea for very long. I was on the money on Studio 60 (The New Paris Opera House, are you shitting me ?!?) but 30 Rock seemed to survive. A pretty damn funny promo for the 30 Rock Season 2 DVD on the recent The Office DVD caught my attention, and I tried a random episode from season 2 off the Netflix service this past weekend. Fast forward to Sunday night and I had nearly imbibed the entire run of the show. God love this service. On demand content ! Because we demand it !

The Bo and I

So for the past few months I've had the pleasure of the company of my overly nice and more or less well behaved Shepperd/retriever (?) mix/mutt Bo. A fine fine fellow, if there ever was one i.e. he's awesome. HOWEVER, the Bo does have a few faults, one being is his insistence on leash pulling. Generally, this happens whenever he sees another critter of the canine persuasion. Bo's response is to say "Hi" regardless of my feelings on the matter. This also happens whenever he sees more lowly creatures i.e. squirrels, birds, to whom Bo doesn't necessarily want to say "Hi" so much as, "I want to know how you taste". He's also generally attracted to people, lights, and any and all high frequency stimulus. His unbridled enthusiasm and boundless charisma usually results in me trying to reel in the hurricane and nearly having my arm ripped from its socket. Since I've had the pup, I've settled on a kind of 50/50, turn the other cheek attitude, but as time gets on, my tolerance has dropped for this behavior....
So last night, I decided to initiate Leash Training ala Nattam. I did a wee bit of googling on the subject of leash training, and found what read at least, like a sensible technique. The tenets seem simple enough.
Step 1: Make sure the pooch is sitting calmly before attaching the leash. Bo already passes this step since he's already sits quite calmly waiting for the leash to be attached.
Step 2: As soon as the dog starts to pull on the leash, the walk "is over". You stand still, force the dog to come back to you and tell him/her to sit and calm down for 5-10 seconds. You then resume the walk but if the naughty behavior persists, you stop and stand (or for Bo, sit) again. This part requires monk-like patience, since you'll probably have to stop repeatedly during a walk. The idea is to teach the dog that you (human) dictate the walk, not t'other way round.
So, I tried this all out, shortening our usual 40+ minute walk to a leisurely stroll to empty Bo of his detritus and down to a local teriyaki shop so I could snag dinner (Fremont's friendly neighborhood Yak's, serving fine yakisoba since 197...something). There were a few hiccups along the way, but, much to my delight and surprise, the furry bastard complied and managed to reduce his insistent pulling to a mere few feet of pattering in front of me. A few more weeks of this, and I should have Bo following complacently right beside me. Grand.
Don't you love how I set up this story to appear as though there would be a humorous finale ?
As Chappelle says, "Aint no point to it, thats the end of the story"