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Utterly biased review: Red Faction: Guerilla (Playstation 3)

Summary:
I liked it better when it was called Saint's Row 2 and I didn't die every five minutes.

Detail:
I was immediately impressed by the graphics. They're amazingly sharp and well-realized, making it look like a cooler version what you'd expect a real Mars mining colony to look like. The vehicles, for example, look like NASA versions of Tonka trucks. They've also used some nice glow effects here and there that really work well in the alien atmosphere.

Perhaps it's because I'm mainly an Xbox 360 player, but the controls never quite gelled. Using the shoulder button to fire, and the trigger to choose a weapon, just feels deeply unnatural. This is especially true because the vehicle controls are quite different: The right and left trigger control forward and reverse gears. Why not have the triggers always signal 'action', whether you're on-foot or not? It's a very strange design decision. There's also an odd multi-second delay between closing the map and when the action starts again, which never failed to throw me off.

While I laud the developers for their commitment to extreme environmental destructibility, that adherence caused some problems. During one rescue mission, I accidentally shot off the ladder to the second story of a building where a hostage was being held. That meant there was no way I could complete the mission. I couldn't seem to get up there without blowing out enough walls to destroy the entire structure, killing him. It's also frustrating to blow a bridge or walkway up only to realize that the structure you destroyed was the way you were meant to get up to the next level or across a chasm.

The weapons upgrade system is quite well-implemented. There's enough salvage for most players to be able to afford some (but not all) upgrades. Each of the weapons are useful under certain circumstances, and the choice goes hand-in-hand with your play style and mission preference.

Even after upgrading, however, they run out of ammo very quickly, turning prolonged fights into a "hunt weapon-laden corpses" mini-game. There are all-too-rare supply crates scattered about, but they seem to only give you one clip rather than fully refilling your supply. Time to head back to the safe point all the way across the map. Again.

The biggest problem of Red Faction: Guerrilla is the difficulty curve. Once you're past the tutorial, expect to die. A lot. It's not so much that you're fragile so much as the fact that you're facing an overwhelming force at all times. The EDF response escalates extremely quickly, from a couple of soldiers in a Humvee to an electricity-spewing mega-tank within a few seconds of fighting. If you're not in a vehicle or behind excellent cover when that happens, prepare to see the "Loading" screen very soon: They're more than happy to simply roll over you again and again, the rag doll physics engine preventing you from doing anything about it. Whee!

Speaking of the oft-encountered loading screen, the most frustrating thing about dying is that you're sent back to the nearest safe house. Mars, however, is a big place, and that safe house was probably several minutes away from where you died. Add in the incredibly aggressive EDF forces who'll often start attacking you on the way, and you have an excellent formula for seeing the same stretch of terrain again... and again... and again...

The difficulty issue is exacerbated by the morale system. Each time you or one of your fellow guerrillas die, the area's morale is lowered. It's easy to keep thwacking away at a mission until the area's morale is worse than when you started. "Yay, things are worse now!" isn't much of a victory cry.

I think that the intent of the designers was for you to improve morale in the area until you have a sizable guerrilla force before attacking. If your fellow freedom fighters didn't have the damage output and resistance of paper dolls, that would work well. Instead, their only function is to constantly lower area morale by joining, running around pointlessly, then dying within seconds. This often occurs at your own hand as they suicidally wander over to where you've set charges, are about to shoot, or in front of your vehicle. Thanks compatriots! With fantastic soldiery like this, I can't imagine how the bad guys took over.

There are solid assortment of side missions. The difficulty curve for some is quite high, though. The one where you ride shotgun and destroy designated targets virtually requires you to completely destroy every target as the driver slings the vehicle all over the road. That would be fine for mid-game and later missions, but... the first mission? Really? It'll add additional frustration for most players rather than the enjoyable change of pace that the designers intended.

After five hours of playing, I kept coming back to the same thought: "I wish I was playing Saint's Row 2 again." It's comes so close to realizing the potential of that previous title by adding much-needed polish. Unfortunately, it takes three steps back by adding a high difficulty curve that makes exploring its reaches an unrewarding experience.

Conclusion:
It's not a bad game, just one that's significantly inferior to Volition's previous effort. If I'd played this a year ago, I'd probably be singing its praises. As it stands, it's another entry in the rapidly expanding list of mediocre open-world games. Mercenaries 2 bids you welcome.

Utterly biased review: Age of Conan

I had high hopes for this MMORPG, based on the enthusiastic reception that welcomed its release. It sounded like basically a solid single-player RPG for the initial part of the game - a definite plus for a dedicated World of Warcraft soloer like myself. Unfortunately, like the other MMORPGs I've tried, it can't come close to competing with the 800-pound gorilla that is WoW.

One prime problem is the graphics. While the character models and structures look good, stiff animations and terrible ground textures really detract from the realism the developers were clearly striving for. The color palate is strongly concentrated in bland browns and grays, making it difficult to differentiate one icon from the next. Fonts are woefully generic and show up directly against the main window, sometimes making them completely illegible.

There are other issues. Enemies literally appear out of nowhere, and sometimes vanish just as quickly. Quests (at least the ones that I played) are the standard "go here and get this/kill them" variety endemic to the genre. It scans its files for illegal modifications each time you open the game, meaning a multi-minute delay. Menus can take 30 seconds or more to pop up (why?!), and 5+ minutes from choosing to exit the game until the computer is usable again.

The biggest problem, though, is one specific to older/casual gamers: The combat is just too fast-paced. I know they're trying to make combat more visceral and exciting, but I feel like I have no time to choose the best attacks/defense/combo. Instead, I have to rely on just executing attacks as quickly as possible. This is not an improvement over WoW's slower-paced, but more thoughtful combat, at least in this gamer's opinion.

Age of Conan isn't a bad game, and I'm sure it has a legion of happy subscribers, but it's just not for me.

Great podcasts

Okay, so I listen to a lot of podcasts. As a kept man (heh), doing tasks that require use of my hands but little mental flexing gives me plenty of time to spend separating the wheat from the chaff.

I download them with the open-source Juice podcast receiver, then play them on my Sansa e250 MP3 player using the Rockbox open-source MP3 player firmware. All these things are highly recommended, as they are made of awesome.

While not an exhaustive list, these are some of the favorites that get listened all the way through, every time.

Gaming Podcasts

CAGCast: The CheapAssGamer.com podcast, hosted by site owner CheapyD and faithful sidekick Wombat, is probably composed of 50% game content and 50% random randomness. The best thing about the podcast is the friendship of its two hosts, revealed in their ability to talk about anything and everthing going on in their lives without embarassment. Updated once per week.

Rebel FM: A gaming podcast hosted by the people who made the 1UP FM podcast so much fun. They generally stick close to gaming, with occasional divergences to discuss alaming events in the neighborhood they record in, dating advice for lovelorn geeks, and current music.

Gamers With Jobs: Shawn "Certis" Andrich focuses with laserlike precision on discussing gaming topics with a regular crew of folks from GWJ. Very rarely does "what I had for lunch today" content make it to air. They also regularly include a guest from the industry, making for some interesting interplay as they banter about the work they're doing and other games they're playing at the moment.

Geekbox: The brainchild of former GFW Live/LAN Party reluctant participant Ryan Scott is an equal mix of gaming content and Lost/Burn Notice/comics/etc. pop chattery. The fact that the host is clearly such a quiet guy IRL is really endearing, and it's nice to listen to a group that's actually enthusiastic about the PC as a gaming platform.

Downloadable Content, the Penny Arcade podcast: Though only sporadically updated as their writing schedule allows, it's always a lot of fun listen to Jerry Holkins (Tycho) and Mike Krahulik (Gabe) as they discuss possible topics for cartoons and fearlessly diss/praise their current gaming obsessions. They also have two series of Dungeons and Dragons games recorded as podcasts by Wizards of the Coast. Featuring PvP author Scott Kurtz and omnipresent entity Will Wheaton, their irrevent take on their characters and the fantasy world is drop-head hilarious.

Other Podcasts

Hardcore History: Host Dan Carlin, a history buff, gives an interesting perspective on the major events in history. Rather than a dry, scholarly tone, he makes his enthusiasm clear in both the random subjects that he finds fascinating (everything to what it must have been like to face one of Hannibal's elephants in battle, to the possibility that John F. Kenney was heavily medicated throughout the bulk of his presidency) and his willingness to speculate in interesting directions.

SModCast: Bizarre name, great podcast. The name is made up out of the names of its two main contributors, Kevin Smith of film director fame, and his friend/producer Scott Mosher. Illicit substances are freely ingested as they move from one bizarre subject to another. If you've ever watched one of the An Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs, you know what an engaging guy Smith is, and the podcast format allows him free reign to talk about whatever weirdness is currently engaging his consciousness.

The Bugle: "Audio Newspaper for a Visual World!" is the bold proclamation at the beginning of each episode, and indicates the level of snark contained therein. Featuring John Oliver (aka "that British guy on The Daily Show") and humorist Andy Saltzman, they move swiftly through the events of the day, making merciless fun of every one. Both of them are incredibly smart, funny guys, and this is one of the few podcasts to make me collapse helplessly in a storm of LOLs.

You Look Nice Today: As a "Journal of Emotional Health", it fails miserably. As a platform for four very odd, funny men to take subject in very odd, funny directions, though, it works perfectly. They generally take one concept, often an idea to present to make money for the podcast from a potential sponsor, and take it to the most bizarre extreme.

...and they call back again 12 hours later

Unbelievable.

Does not want 2 be surveyed kthx

If you get a letter from the Arbitron (radio station ratings) people in the mail, beware. Annoyance shall follow.

A week or two ago, we received one explaining that they'd be calling to get our input on local radio stations, enclosing a dollar bill. This was a fairly transparent attempt to make me feel as if I had an obligation to talk to them. I kept the dollar and threw the rest away, planning on avoiding any surveyors who called. If they're stupid enough to send a dollar to an antisocial SOB such as myself, more the fool they.

Since then, they've been calling several times per day without leaving a message. Instead of disclosing their business name, it comes through as "Columbia, MD". We've also gotten a ton of "Unknown name, unknown number" calls lately, which may have been them as well. They finally left one confusing message, which finally clued me in to who was constantly calling  us.

Finally, tired of seeing them pop up on my caller ID constantly, I answered the phone when they called early this morning. She started in on her spiel, which I politely answered with "I'm sorry, I don't listen to any radio, have a good day"and prepared to hang up. Instead of letting me politely brush them off, she answered back by saying that they're also interested in talking to people who don't listen to the radio (huh?), and, without pause, continued by beginning the "blah blah blah This call may be monitored for quality assurance blah blah blah" boilerplate (always a precursor to an annoying conversation).

Irritated, I simply said "Not interested, thanks very much" and hung up at that point. I understand that telephone operators are paid by the number of people who they can get to talk to them, but I HATE IT when they ignore polite brush-offs and force me to hang up on them. I really don't like feeling like a rude person, particularly to some poor surveyor who's just trying to put food on her table, and really resent being put in that position.

Screw you, Arbitron. If you want me to spend time talking to you, it'll cost a hell of a lot more than a dollar.

Microsoft Access 2007's bizarre 'upgrades'

Oh, god, where to begin... so many weird/bad choices to talk about...

The biggest change is the Ribbon interface. I can see new users liking this, but it sucks hard for developers and power users used to a very customizable interface. It's only customizable through editing a complex XML document, and it's impossible to make it go away completely. Even if you go through the convoluted steps to force it to display the a pre-2007 toolbar, remnants of the Ribbon remain.

They only shipped a GUI ribbon editor (Ribbon Designer) with Excel, Outlook, Word and Powerpoint. This has "Access 2007 was rushed out the door" written all over it, as, if anything, Access needs it far more than the other products due to the market for sophisticated solutions written for that platform. This is really just another example of Microsoft's "Access? Never heard of it!" attitude. If they had their way, they'd almost certainly just abandon Access entirely in favor of pro-level products like SQL Server and Visual Studio.

The cleanest answer to people with heavily customized menus/toolbars is just to not move to the 2007 format. If you do 'upgrade', you'll have completely uneditable menus and toolbars unless you retain a previous version of Access. Encouraging people to NOT move their database to the current format is just bizarre. Oh, or you can buy a third-party component that hacks menus back into Access. Nice little kick in the teeth for developers after paying $100-200 just to get the latest version of Access.

Running both versions side-by-side appears to be problematic at best. I've repeatedly had Access 2007 semi-uninstall itself when I open Access 2000. Opening the shortcut for 2007 results in an "Installing..." message box, then bombs out with "Error #2711: AccessRTNonBootFiles". From there, I have to run the Microsoft Office Diagnostics tool. Once that fixes the problem with 2007, I have to manually re-enable the Microsoft Access Developer Extensions.

When that happens several times every day, taking 10 minutes or more to fix each time... Let's just say that Z has been a saint for putting up with my howls of rage for the past several weeks. Why Microsoft still insists on tying their frigging products into everything else in the system, octopus-like, causing compatibility problems all over the place, is a mystery. Stop it! Bad! No reason for this in 2008!

The last time that happened was even more delightful. For some reason, it completely borked my entire Office 2000 installation. Repair options did nothing to fix the problem. In the end, I had to completely uninstall Office 2000, then reinstall from CD. Fun!

After the frustration that I encountered trying to hack the Quick Access Toolbar into a more traditional menu, I decided to just put my frustrations aside, drink the MS Kool-aid, and convert my menu system into a custom Ribbon.

You'll have to add the Microsoft Office 12.0 Object Library to the references for your project in VB in order to avoid compile errors. This is because the code you call from the ribbon need to use the following format: Public Sub MySubNameHere(ctl As IRibbonControl). Note the 'ctl As IRibbonControl' parameter, as Access will give the following error when calling them without it: "Can't run the macro or callback ..." otherwise.

You'll call them from your ribbon XML as follows:
<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui">
    <ribbon startFromScratch="true">
        <tabs>
            <tab id="tabMain" label="Home">
                <group id="grpProjects" label="Projects">
                    <button id="cmdHome" label="Home" onAction="ShowMyAlert" size="large" imageMso="OpenStartPage" supertip="Test of calling VBA code.">
                </group>
            </tab>
        </tabs>
    </ribbon>
</customUI>

Something subtle has changed with opening modal/maximized forms in between 2000 and 2007. I get all kinds of weird behavior now, from forms resizing themselves to smaller versions after a maximized form is closed, to forms going behind the Windows toolbar (making some controls inaccessible), to very strange behavior on report print previews (next/last page controls being semi-disabled, vanishing completely, etc.) The solution for the problems I've encountered is to set forms to open as non-modal from code, with the 'Pop Up' property set to 'No', the 'Modal' property set to 'Yes', and just have the calling form loop endlessly with a DoEvents until the called form doesn't exist any more. The called form needs to have DoCmd.Maximize in its Open event. After it closes, DoCmd.Maximize needs to be called from the original form in order to make sure it's restored to its previous position. Every other solution I've tried leads to some variety of the aforementioned weirdness occuring in one form or another.

In conclusion, Access 2007 sucks for the most part. I'm sorry I ever suggested it to my client, as it's now taken dozens upon dozens of hours of my personal time to fix the many problems it's caused. Avoid moving to the 2007 version if at all possible.

"Bound": Why did it take me so long to see this?

After lingering on our Tivo for weeks (and our Netflix list for years), we finally watched Bound last night. What a great movie - smart, well-acted and incredibly sexy.

I certainly wasn't expecting it to be so beautifully and inventively shot, with surprising camera angles that make every scene genuinely exciting. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I found it was written, directed and produced by the Wachowski Brothers, who'd find fame with The Matrix three years later. Watching this in high definition on the nicely uncensored Universal HD channel was a great experience.

They brought in sex columnist Susie Bright as a consultant, and that influence definitely shows up on screen. The first half of the movie feels like high-class lesbian porn. Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon are very believable as secret lovers, with each alternating between aggression and vulnerability.

On top of all those achievements, the story is actually pretty good. It lacks the tangled skien of most noir classics, but that works in its favor by concentrating on the characters instead. They act like intelligent human beings, even when they're at the end of their rope. Watching poor Caesar's unwitting betrayal of his mafia family is alternately heart-breaking and hilarious.

If Bound has been hanging around on your "to-watch" list for a while, get off your ass and see it. You'll be glad you did.

"Get Smart": (Insert sarcastic 'smart' pun here)

Whatever you came up with, it'll be funnier than most of what you'll see on the screen.

I appear to have been watching an entirely different movie than the rest of the world, because the one I watched mostly sucked. From the abundance of tired, recycled jokes (think the makers maybe saw Naked Gun at some point?), to the annoyingly written and woodenly acted love interest, to the embarassingly on-the-nose music used in every damn scene, to the wholesale adoption of the frenetic "no shot shall last longer than 5 seconds" philosophy of modern film's worst offenders, it commits a litany of sins that I can't forgive.

There are some good points. When the timing of his jokes aren't off due to the aforementioned editing, Steve Carrell offers a solid performance. Alan Arkin steals every scene he's in. The Rock is just as ridiculously likeable as ever. There are some genuinely clever scenes at the beginning of the film. The way they worked in the history of the show was smart and, surprisingly, doesn't go overboard (though the less said about their repeated efforts to work in Max's signature catchphrase, the better).

It slowly sheds those good qualities, becoming more and more generic, until, by the end, I wondered if an entirely different team of writers had taken up the pen.I was forced to recall my "how do I get through this Time of Great Annoyance without falling asleep or walking out?" skills that I learned those many years ago in the lengthy worship services of my youth.

It's not particularly offensive, really - just another meh summer movie, focus-tested to appeal to people who either haven't seen or don't remember the infinitely funnier comedies of summers past.

Review*: Dark Sector (Xbox 360)

In the tradition of the B-movie comes Dark Sector, a B-game if there ever was one. There are plenty of, ah, "quirks" to go around, and it's unlikely to be the kind of game that gets Game of the Year consideration from professional reviewers, but most players are going to have a good time.

You star as... some guy, doing... things, for... some... purpose? Okay, I didn't pay much attention to the rather generic cutscenes. From what I gather, an alien infection struck the earth several decades ago. It turns humans into mutated zombies and worse. You're a government agent dedicated to eradicating the virus and its victims, with extreme prejudice if necessary.

Early on, you're infected and begin mutating into something rather alien. The most obvious change is your right arm, which turns into this weird lumpy husk that can produce a throwing weapon called a glaive. It acts like a boomerang, returning to your hand after each toss. It's a surprisingly effective weapon, especially in combination with a Burnout 3-ish aftertouch system that allows you to slow down time and direct the weapon around corners, through holes, and ultimately directly into whatever part of your enemy suits your fancy.

You also have more traditional guns at your disposal, including pistols, shotguns and rifles (among others). Both these and the glaive can be fired either from the hip or from a Resident Evil 4-style aiming system that ensures you can't really move and aim at the same time. It makes one wish more designers would adopt this system, as the controls work just as well as it did in that legendary game.

You'll start out battling humans, then rather less-human enemies get mixed in. The former are much more enjoyable as enemies, as gory slicing-off of limbs and bloody finishers never gets old. Eventually you'll discover ways to charge up your weapon for extra damage, effects, or greater damage radius.

The graphics are surprisingly good, showing that the artists were kept busy during this one's long, long development cycle (it was originally intended as a PS3 launch title, I believe). While the palette is often the dreary muted grey/brown one seen in games like Gears of War, there's good detail all around. Enemy animations are generally excellent.

The worst thing one can say about this game is that the bosses are horrible. Annoying as hell, with plenty of cheap one-shot deaths and you-can-shoot-me-only-in-this-one-specific-place-with-this-one-specific-weapon-only-after-doing-something-else bullshit. Did I mention that the feedback is either poor or nonexistent, so you'll just have to guess to see if you're doing the 'right' attack in the 'right' place? Wash rinse repeat several times within each fight. Ugh.

Is this fun for ANYONE? How does this kind of stupid garbage make it through the testing process? Is there a evil tester somewhere who cackles with delight after each game he sabotages by insisting that these fights will be greeted with open arms by players?

There are also some glitches here and there. The attacks occasionally don't charge correctly, and actions sometimes don't work as intended even when the correct controls are used. Enemies corpses are prone to the St. Vitus' dance that was often seen in 1st generation 360 games. The weapons upgrade system is poorly implemented, making it hard to determine what the effect of upgrading your weapons will be and which weapons are better than others.

Even with those annoyances, I really enjoyed the game. It takes a lot to get me to stick with a game even through annoying boss battles, and the lure of additional opportunities to guide my glaive through Bad Guys' heads was more than enough. The first 3/4 of the game is almost solid fun, making it well worth picking up as a rental or on the cheap.

* Okay, I didn't technically finish it, but I got to the last boss and decided that
my life wouldn't be markedly improved by banging my head against the wall for the next two hours. I think it's safe to assume that We Learn A Valuable Lesson About Life. Either tolerance for others, or killing all others who are different. 50/50 chance.