Crackdown 2 mini-Review

There are a lot of reviews out there that you can read that will give you all the gameplay specifics, but here is a short guide to help you decide if you should buy Crackdown 2:

Did you like Crackdown 1? If yes, you should love Crackdown 2. If no, will hate Crackdown 2.

Do you like an almost pure sandbox game, with little linear story ? If yes, you'll love Crackdown 2. If no, you will absolutely hate Crackdown 2.

Are you a fan of running around like a crazy person blowing stuff up in new and exciting ways, alone or with friends? If yes, you'll love Crackdown 2. If not, you will hate Crackdown 2.

Basically, Crackdown 2 is Crackdown on steroids. There is no epic Mass Effect story and character development (outside of leveling). It is pure carnage, explosions, guns, racing, and orb hunting. I will say that the demo didn't really do the game justice since you didn't get exposed to the bigger elements the game has to offer. If you like blowing stuff up and climbing around massive cities, definitely check out Crackdown 2.

Personal rating: 4 out of 5

Rating average folks, non-genre fans will probably give it: 6 or 7 out of 10

Pick it up at Amazon.

Feel free to find me on Xbox Live:

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Push th' Little Daises

I recently started the now canceled ABC dramedy, Pushing Daises, and and have been really enjoying it. The show follows easy-going Ned, a pie maker with a unique talent. "Is it juggling?" you ask. No, juggling isn't that unique. What Ned can do, however, is bring dead things back to life with a mere touch. Upon discovering this ability as a young child Ned quickly learned that there were, indeed, rules that governed his actions:

Touch something once, it comes back to life.

Touch it again, it is dead forever.

Touch something and bring it to life but don't touch it again within 60 seconds and something else is randomly chosen to die nearby.

Ned is working with a local PI that accidentally caught Ned in the act of reviving/killing someone. The PI, Emerson Cod, uses Ned's ability to revive dead victims of crime and query them about the who and how they were killed then collects the reward when he 'solves' the crime. Easy money.

Amazingly, (amazing, I say!) in the very first episode Ned learns that his childhood crush was murdered on a cruise ship. Amazingly, Emerson is on the case! Amazingly, Ned revives her and just...can't...touch her that second time in the 60 seconds. So............

Ned now has his childhood crush back in his daily life and cannot touch her in any way or she will die instantly.

Oh, the drama of it all!

But seriously, it really does not come off as odd as it sounds. Is the show quirky? Oh, heck yes. One of the first thoughts I had watching the show was that it felt like Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me got drunk and had an awesome baby together. I patted myself on the back when I discovered Lee Pace ("Ned") had been the older brother on Wonderfalls and the show had the same creator as Dead Like Me. Seriously, I am that awesome - or I watch too much TV. One of those.

Granted, I am only 5 episodes into the series but if the remaining 1 3/4 seasons is as awesome I will be well pleased. And, yes, you saw that right: there were only two seasons. Two season! You can knock that out in a a few weeks through Netflix, Hulu, or your favorite torrent site.

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The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "quothe." Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I've had more names than anyone has a right to. The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it's spoken, can mean The Flame, The Thunder, or The Broken Tree.

"The Flame" is obvious if you've ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple of hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it's unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.

"The Thunder" I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.

I've never thought of "The Broken Tree" as very significant. Although in retrospect, I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.

My first mentor called me E'lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant "to know."

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.


When I was trying to decide which book I wanted to read next I kept getting recommendations from various sites to check out The Name of the Wind by first time author Patrick Rothfuss. I really fought that recommendation for a while. See, NOTW is the first book in a trilogy and I have a general rule about book series I try to follow: Do not read a book until the series is complete.

Why?

You know that terrible wait between each week of 24 when you just have to know what happens next? Stretch that out for a year. Three years. Forever, if the author never gets around to finishing it.

There are definite exceptions. I read the New Jedi Order as each book was released until I got distracted (hmm, I need to finish of the last couple books….). I was the old guy in line at midnight releases for Harry Potter. I’m convinced George R. R. Martin personally hates me and releases his books slowly just to mess with me.

When I read the above quote on the back cover of NOTW I figured I would give it a chance and I’m sure glad I did.

The Name of the Wind [DAW Trade, 2007, 672 pages] is the tale of Kvothe and is told from his point of view. I would almost liken it to a memoir, but that would be inaccurate. The trilogy is not a standard trilogy with three complete stories that are bound into an overarching story across three books. Instead, this trilogy (called The Kingkiller Chronicles) consists of one story told over three books. So, yes, there are many loose ends at the end of the book and a strong incompleteness that makes me want to run, not walk, to buy the second part….which isn’t out yet.

I really don’t want to give out any spoilers so I will just let the quote above wet your appetite as to the themes of the book. I will say that I really enjoyed the way this book was written. It doesn’t fall into a lot of the genre-traps that a lot of fantasy writers can’t seem to avoid. Everything, even the magic, has a since of realism to it. The character development of Kvothe is excellent and the cast of characters around him and against him are enjoyable and rarely cliché.

I almost hate to say this because I think it might mislead you, but NOTW is a good stepping stone away from the Harry Potter books to more ‘real’ fantasy books for those that have come into the genre via Harry Potter. You still have your magic and your academic settings, but you get a story written for adults. For as much fun as Harry Potter is, it completely rips off a lot of other fantasy writers – but that is a post for another day.

I read a lot of fantasy novels. There are a lot of terrible novels that are exactly what you think the whole fantasy genre is. However, for all the crap, there are many, many excellent fantasy novels that come out each year and some true classics that you can’t go wrong reading. I think The Name of the Wind would be a good place to start.

One last side note: towards the end of the book some profanity starts showing up. The vast majority of the book is alright, but the last hundred pages or so it does pick up a good bit. I just wanted to give you a heads up.

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Movie: Lars and the Real Girl

This weekend Netflix finally bestowed upon my mailbox the DVD version of Lars and the Real Girl. I had been looking forward to viewing this film since the first time I saw the trailer a few months back and giggled with glee as I fired it up. I love a movie with interesting but unusual characters and a non-traditional story. To say that LatRG has an nontraditional plot is more than a little bit of an understatement.

Lars and the Real Girl is the tale of a young man that lives on the edge of society emotionally. Lars, played perfectly by Ryan Gossling, lives in a small garage while his brother and his brother’s wife live in the main house in what appears to be Michigan. He has a normal job and attends church every Sunday, but his interactions with people are limited by his own idiosyncrasies and insecurities. He loathes physical contact and at best can stumble through an awkward conversation with female co-workers. Lars cannot even join his family in the main house for a meal without visible anxiety.

Things take a turn for the bizarre when one cold day a UPS truck delivers a large nondescript box to Lars’s door. We quickly learn what was inside: a RealGirl sex doll. Now, before you are completely freaked out and questioning my choice in films, let me jump ahead and say that it is not what it seems. What has really happened is that Lars has had a delusional break and believes the girl is an actual real woman he has met online. The rest of the movie is how his family and the community respond to his new ‘friend’. This is not an American Pie style sex comedy. In fact, it isn't a sex comedy at all.

I won’t go into a lot of detail so as not to ruin the fun of the movie, but I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that it is quite humorous and sad at the same time to see the way that Lars interacts with his ‘girlfriend’ much better than the way he interacts with the real people around him.

One of the most obvious questions that this all brought to mind as how would I react if one of my friends or family members acted in a similar way. I don’t even mean necessarily the exact same thing but more if they adopted some eccentricity or other behavior as a result of mental illness that was, frankly, embarrassing to myself. Pretty close to the start of the movie his brother and sister-in-law are presenting the situation to the town priest and what I assume are other leaders in the church. After some debate the priest says the now cliché, “What would Jesus do?” What would He do? What should I do? What would I do if it was someone at my church? Do I play along the way it is suggested? At what point am I no longer being supportive and become patronizing or even mocking, even by accident? I don’t know exactly. I think it is a really interesting question, though, and one that has sprung to my mind a few times the last few days.

Despite how the plot sounds creepy on the surface, I can assure you that you will find little to no ‘ick’-factor in this movie. In the end, it is a movie about relationships in a family as well as a community. I highly recommend this movie to anyone willing to give it chance, although I realize that some people won’t like the more subtle comedy of the movie as opposed to an in your face, over the top comedy. To each his own taste – that is why the there are so many different genres. I do hope that you will think about checking out this movie. PG-13, some language.



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Movie: Helvetica

Earlier this week I sat down and watched the 2007 documentary, Helvetica, on Blu-ray. Being a fan of documentaries, obscure knowledge, and graphic design I figured I couldn't really go wrong. Fortunately, my assumptions were proven right and I was rewarded with a (dare I say?) entertaining film covering the history and prolific nature of the font type helvetica.

The documentary takes the form of interviews with well known graphic designers and the family and friends of those responsible for the creation of helvetica in Switzerland 50 years ago. These interviews are divided by images of text all over cities throughout the world using the font. I must admit that I really was made aware of just how prevalent the font is. Since watching this I have also started noticing the font everywhere!

A bit more surprising was the intense opinions about helvetica held in the graphic design community. One woman basically said that in the 1970's she wouldn't use Helvetica because it was the font type of corporations and it was corporations that sponsored the Vietnam war. Easy, killer! Of course, it is easy to laugh at her statement, but one thing I was confronted with was how fonts effect how it is we see what we are reading. Some fonts cannot say what other fonts can say with the same words. The massive use of helveica is largely due to the fact that it is neutral and can say anything. Helvetica is the font of choice for corporations - and governments, advertisers, and people making lost dog signs. Helvetica is for everyone for anything.

In the end, Helvetica served it's purpose in giving me a history of the font itself, its use and theory, as well as confront me just how widespread the use of it is. It is put together very well and the movie never drags or gets boring. I really enjoyed watching it and feel a bit smarter - which is the point, right? I would not buy this Blu-ray (or dvd) but would definitely recommend it. I feel I should add that, oddly, there are a few f-bombs dropped by some of the interview subjects.

This post was NOT in Helvetica. ;)




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