The Return of Ian’s World…

4 years ago, to the day (well I started this on 24th), I took the notion that I would quite fancy drawing a web comic.

I am not a particularly talented artist. But somehow I put together a strip featuring, to begin with at least, characters based upon, or at least chariactures of 2 close friends and myself. What started off as something I was doing just to exercise the creative juices turned into something more. I discovered I was beginning to build a readership that was stretching beyond the inner circle of friends who would really appreciate the subtle commentary on my friends and I’s nuances, and that people from as far away as Japan and New Zealand were following it. I soon moved the comic from its humble location on a blogging website to a purposebuilt site…www.ians-world.net (now defunct).

I reached a lot of milestones…the first 50, the centenary, the birthday…but early 2007, I started to learn guitar, and coupled with lots of university work, I wasn’t really enjoying drawing the comic anymore, and didn’t feel I could match the schedule anymore, and so with a whimper more than a bang, Ians World finished on strip #167 .

Until now.

Recently, encouraged by friends recalling the strip with fond memories, I started to think about it starting it up again, which brings us to today, the 4th anniversary of where it all began. Once more into the breach…Ian’s World is back.

More Ian. More Lee. More Lori. More minature cult. And much much more fairy jokes.

Without further ado…I present #168: Back with a bang

Stay Classy,

Ian

P.S. I’m looking into a way of hosting the pics on WordPress without having them resized (hence the photobucket hosting), plus how to get the entire back catalogue available too. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Stay tuned for more .

This ain’t SeaWorld, this is real as it gets…

So I finished up Resident Evil 5 a couple of days back.  Being a big fan of its predecessor I had been really looking forward to this title and it really didn’t disappoint.  While I don’t think that it was quite a scary as previous titles in the series I think that it definitely came up to scratch in terms of setting.  The African backdrop is superb and had my characters fighting back the bio-threat everywhere from shanty settlements to tribal marshlands and from ravaged oil fields to ancient temples.  I have to say, however, that I had such a laugh to myself when the last chapter struck up.  In Chapter 6 I didn’t think to myself “hey, I’m in a humble market town” or even “gee, I’m in some ritualistic sacrificial ground…” No, in the final part of the game only one thought crossed my mind…

Sadly, while on said boat and despite the lack of ammo, I couldn’t swap out my shotgun and magnum for my swim trunks and my flippy-floppies.  Is it too much to hope for some downloadable content which adds a T-Pain costume to Chris Redfield’s repertoire?  Now, you see, you’re laughing but I don’t know, I reckon it could work…

In other news, the Dungeons and Dragons campaign which I had re-joined a couple of weeks back continued tonight.  I set off to join my fellow intrepid adventures with (finally) some kind of character concept in my head.  I mean obviously I’ve been playing a bard, like I mentioned in the last D&D-centric post, but it’s nice to know where you eventually want to end up with your character.  I now figure that Laurie, my character, is going to become a kind of specialist thief.  He can use his keen wits and experience in speechcraft to worm his way into places he’d otherwise never get and then use a combination of acrobatics, dexterity, stealth and magic to acquire valuables.  We leveled up tonight which basically means that all our characters got better at what they do.  I chose to make my level count a lot more towards the acrobatic side of my character making him an expert at jumping and tumbling as well as bolstering his stealthy attributes like his ability to hide and move silently.  I’m never going to be as good an unaided thief as the like of a rogue would be but Laurie will have the edge when it comes to his magic; eventually being able to make himself invisible or teleport out of sticky situations and the such.

Nevertheless, with my new found acrobatics in tow I re-joined my party where we had left off the last time.  In truth, the tornado stunt didn’t really help and we ended up in our targeted building (where, if you’ll recall, our two man quarry were holding up), in a tight corridor facing off against tens of enemies.  Indeed, our cunning plans had somewhat back-fired and our notions of funnelling the enemies through the narrow space soon resulted in we, the bottleneck-ers, quickly becoming the bottleneck-ees.  This glitch in our plan resulted in the death of one of my companions and his player facing the dreaded reroll (having to make a new character).  In the heat of the combat which continued Laurie had little time to think about the death of his friend but, no doubt, in the respite which followed, the humble human troubadour would have taken time to compose a short lament for the dwarf named Loken.

The Unfortunate Tale of the Dwarven Barbarian

Bravest Loken, that fighter fair

He sure did have a lot of hair.

As sure in life as now in death,

The smell of ale hung on his breath.

But he died well, with axe in hand

In the path of danger he did stand.

Defiance was his battle cry

His only choice? To fight or die.

His final moments, fought he well

Until death tolled it’s darkest knell.

But death, alone? No fitting end

Brave Loken died next to a friend.

Side by side, he and Relgore

That’s the half-orc, didn’t I mention that before?

And even as his lights grew dim

That half-orc had a taste for him.

To bravest Loken we bid farewell

Your full-plate armour we did sell.

It netted us two thousand gold

Fair tribute to our friend of old.

As we battled on through those the enemies in that building which became Loken’s tomb we found ourselves now engaging not only a mixture of both weak and powerful melee combatants but also a quartet of archers on a balcony.  With the rest of the party now indisposed and Laurie’s compendium of spells all but exhausted I found myself turning to my newly acquired acrobatic ability.  In fact the next six words uttered struck more fear into my party than the spilling of Loken’s blood as I stepped up to the plate saying “Listen guys, I’ve got a plan.”

What was this daring plan?  To dart across the room, jump onto the balcony and engage the archers keeping them distracted for a round or two.  Some would say that for a lightly armoured bard with next to no hit points to do such a thing would be all but foolhardy.

Me?  I’d call it brave.

This plan of epic proportion left the party completely stunned and re-appropriating Penny Arcade’s Gabe in asking

Can Laurie leap onto a balcony and attack four archers before tumbling back down to safety…?

 

… Hell yea he can!

That is a great band name…

Ok, so I’m not a big fan of ‘facebook.’  I mean you’ll find me there but its more out of a desire to stay in touch rather than an obsessive desire to ‘social network.’  Now, in fairness, I’m on ‘bebo’ as well and it is, perhaps, my preferred locale for this kind of activity but I have to admit I am a little tired of the quite obvious teenage market to which the site panders.  This evening I happened to check my account only to be greeted by a helpful info-banner reminding me that

If he doesn’t wear a condom, he’s just a prick

…Yes, quite.  I also got rather tired of the spam messages from random sites who use bebo at what seems like a kind of baiting-ground for individuals who may potentially seek, how shall I say, online adult services…?  Yes, from time to time I’d open my inbox to find that I had a lovely message from Jane21 who’s email address was nicole45@spambot.com enquiring if I’d perhaps like to see her teeny-tiny panties…  I mean, truthfully, this isn’t the only kind of spam mail I’d receive.  No, indeed, often friends would forward me quizzes posted on their blogs asking intimate questions hoping that blinded by a moment of boredom, I’d cave in and fill it out.

From time to time, however, on both bebo and facebook you receive little gems of messages.  I got this fantastic one from a few friends over the course of the last few weeks.  You may have got it yourself.  It goes a little something like this

1 – Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random… Read More” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to "Random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

I was a little bored this evening so I gave it a go.  Quite simply, I got an amazing result!  Indeed, I rather think I’d like to form this band and create this album just because it is quite so awesome!  The one thing I should say before I reveal the masterpiece is that it really wouldn’t be fair not to mention the photostream on flickr where my random third picture came from, so please, check out Wings of a Hero.

So, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to announce to the world my next (and incidentally first) musical project, spawned from nothing more than a humble facebook forward!

The Bard’s Tale…

Tonight I had the best laugh with a bunch of my friends!  I was up in Belfast tonight at QUB’s gaming society – Dragonslayers.  Last week I had rejoined a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons which was being ran by a very good friend of mine.  Essentially the way the game works is that one person narrates the game; they come up wit adventures, quests, rewards and all of the pitfalls along the way.  The rest of us all play characters in the game hence the genre label of role-playing game.  If you imagine it in the context of The Lord of The Rings, each of the players in the game is like a member of the Fellowship working together, combining skills and abilities to complete a quest – the destruction of the One Ring being the quest in this comparison. 

My character in the game is named Laurie after one of the characters in Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar saga.  Larie is a Bard; not a strong fighter, not a particularly strong healer, not a great thief and definitely no Gandalf when it comes to magic but he can do all of the above… The Bard’s real strength is in his speechcraft.  Laurie is a crafter of fine verse, renowned the world over for his epic poems and tales of valorous deeds.  He’s a charismatic chappy, able to charm his way out of most difficult situation and, if it comes down to it, an amazing liar!

In tonight’s adventure myself and my party found ourselves undertaking the simplest of tasks and making, frankly, a real hash of it!  We were tasked with infiltrating a building and taking a couple of brigands captive.  When we arrived we found the building to be guarded by both archers and swordsmen.  After the party dispatched the archers on the roof, my character, Laurie, proceeded to coax some of the armed swordsmen out of the building by convincing them of a bandit attack in a near-by street.  Four fighters left the building and the party decided this was their best chance to storm it.  As we enter this transcription of what happened Laurie and another party member, Calain, are keeping watch outside while the rest of the party storm the building and seek out the men we’ve been tasked with capturing!

Calain (Perched atop a look-out point and communicating to Laurie through a telepathic link) – Those four fighters are on their way back now… They’ll be here in like 30 seconds or so!  I think they’ve spotted me!

Laurie (Moving to a position from which he can see the four approaching fighters) – Ok, never fear! I shall stall them!

Calain – I’ve got your back

Laurie (Stepping out in front of the fighters with a magic scroll in his hand and lying through his teeth) – Halt!  Do not take another step forward!  I am the finest wizard in all the land!  My destructive magic will be your demise unless you flee now!

Calain (Putting his head in his hands) – *sigh*

[At this point I role a dice to determine whether or not I am convincing enough to dupe the fighters.  I fail.]

Calain (Firing an arrow at the enraged fighters approaching his friend) – Laurie, there’s a rope here on to this roof.  Get out of there!  I’m warning you, I’m pulling this rope up behind me any second!

Laurie – Don’t worry, my plan hasn’t failed yet!  I’m going to try it again. This is either going to work or…

Calain – …you’re going to get beefed … and die!

Laurie (Casting a spell which, in reality, is merely healing him for a measly 2 hit points) – I’ve just erected a powerful ward around myself!  Last chance!  Turn away or die!

[I roll again to bluff the four fighters.  I succeed!]

The Four Fighters (Stopping in front of the scrawny Bard with an air of apprehension) -  *emmmmm*

Calain (Shouting at the Four Fighters) – Run while you still can!  This wizard’s mad! He’ll kill us all!

Laurie (Producing another insignificant scroll and useless wand from his backpack) – *looks menacing*

Brennus (Emerging from a near-by building and spying Calain) – What’s happening?

Calain – Laurie’s going to get [and I quote] bummed!  He’s pretending to be a powerful wizard!

Brennus – Tell him to act like he’s casting a spell!  I’ll summon a tornado behind him!

Calain (Using his telepathic link with Laurie) – Act like you’re casting a spell!

The Four Fighters (Unconvinced by Laurie’s unfulfilled promises of destruction) – Attack!

Laurie – *runs like hell down a side street*

The Four Fighters - *chase after Laurie*

Brennus - *summons a tornado in the street where Laurie used to be*

Manex (Emerging from the same building which Brennus had) – There appears to be a tornado in the middle of the street… Is that normal?

Scooter – The (il)logical Song

I wouldn’t say I’m exactly a fan of dance music, particular when these days it appears most DJ’s just seem content to take some song from the 80’s cut it up, put a higher tempo out on it and sell it to a generation too young to remember the original. However, if you remember the original, it hurts like a burst blister. Rubbed with alcohol. That’s on fire.

However, putting my normal feelings towards the genre aside, I do happen to like more original offerings. Then there are songs which remind of a certain time in my life, whether something that I associate with playing videogames while playing in the background, or something I would often overhear at local bowling alley-cum-arcade. (Don’t laugh, thats the correct spelling, you just have a mind like a gutter).

One such song was that of german techno band, Scooter, The Logical Song (or Ramp!) which itself samples The Logical Song by Supertramp. Yeah, the tune and lyrical hook of Scooter’s production is actually all taken from a song which preceded it by 22 years (remember what I said at the start of this article?). So what exactly did Scooter contribute? Well, see for yourself…

Incase you missed it, or have been strucken deaf, I’ve noted what and when H.P. Baxxter (born Hans-Peter Geerdes…cause you know X’s are hardcore) makes sure you know its Scooter you’re listening to.

0.35 – Good Morning!

Umm…good morning to you too? Seriously, how many songs have you ever heard on the radio where the artist actually wishes you a good day?

0.41 – Eeyeah

0.45 – 1,2…1,2,3,4

Musicians really have trouble counting.

0.56 – Pump it up!

1.01 – Aagghhhh

“That is no Orc horn”

1.02 – RMB no remmy, no skippy, no fate yeah

Wind me jam for the microphone and busy with the DJ

Jungles in the place

Jungles on the case

Scooter, are you ready?

I have no blooming idea. Perhaps 0.56 was a reference to his I.V. morphine drip and he’s having an opiate hit.

1.32 – Yeah!

1.48 – Come on!

2.07 – Love, Peace and Unity,

Siberia, the place to be!

Apparently dance and techno was all the rage in the Gulag.

2.14 – The K, the L, The F and ideology, hallelujah!

This could be a reference to these guys or these guys. You really hope not these guys…

2.29 – 1,2…1,2,3 YEAH

2.40 – ROUGH!

Possibly the most random thing I’ve ever heard in a dance record…

2.46 – Aaggghhh!

…okay, till that.

2.58 – Here we go!

3.17 – Stand up!

He tells you to get to your feet to dance 30 seconds before the song finishes.

3.26 – Once again!

3.30 – We’re getting jiggy!

I sincerely hope not. You’re 42. And Male. And German *.

3.33 – Siberiaaaa

He must really like it. Perhaps he holidays there. There’s got to be lots of vacant homes (see 2.07)

3.40 – Yeah!

3.45 – Goodbye!

Scooter – the most polite german techno group ever?

Stay Classy,

Ian

* P.S I’m sure Germans are lovely people.

With or Without You…

Maybe you folks are much like myself and don’t watch any of those “strictly-come-dancing-on-ice-factor” type shows.  In general I have a certain distain for them but shows like the X-Factor in particular hold a high reservation on my hypothetical list of dislikes. There’s just something about “televisually tailored pop sensations” which grate on me a little.  Nonetheless, I found myself watching a little bit of the X-Factor this evening.  I never really expect to be blown away by anything in particular but, needless to say, tonight was a little different.  Meet Diana Vickers…

I was discussing her performance with a friend shortly after the broadcast.  You see, while this young lady is better than a lot of artists period, never mind contestants on that show, I almost wish that she would just  pick up a great contract from some sincere studio rather than getting sucked into the X-Factor machine.  I hope she is allowed to remain the kind of person she seems; honest, genuine and indiviual, character traits that are reflected in her wonderful talent for singing.

With or Without You,

Jim

…iWas blind but now iSee

There comes a time in all mens lives when they must consider their faithfullness and loyalty to their partner…especially when they find that their partner isn’t all they seem and is infact screwing them around. For me, I decided enough was enough. After years upon years of deriding Macs (and not all without good reason), I changed my tune and bought one. Why the change of heart you ask? Well, lets get some perspective first…

First off, I have been raised on computers since I old enough to type into a keyboard. While other toddlers inquisition led them to derobing their sisters Barbies or seeing what EVERYTHING in the garden tasted like, I was learning, without knowing it, how to operate the very fundamentals of what know as operating systems using a programming language that some of you more computer literate folk may know as BASIC. You see, unlike most of you, whose first experience was likely an IBM PC running Windows 95 (or later)…the first computer in our house was a BBC Micro.

Yes. That behemoth used to sit in a corner, first in our attic and then in my sisters bedroom. Technically it was for use by our church, of which my dad was an elder, but even from a young age, I caught the ICT bug, and was hooked. I was never much good at the games, but it wasn’t for want of trying. I spent hours upon hours at the machine, jumping along with the sprites on the screen, perhaps hoping that the extra effort I put into the motion in the real world might help them in their digital dimension. Sometimes a little too much effort went in…demonstrated best in broken SHIFT and RETURN keys…

So we fast forward a few years, and though I managed to have some interaction with Windows NT 3.1 (which was still running on some of the PC’s at my grammar school in the “noughties”), our first PC (as per the modern definition) came in the way of a Gateway 2000, 166Mhz, 32mb Ram, running Windows 95 with a hard drive of 1.92 Gb. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find mobile phones more powerful than that now aways, but back then, that was pretty much top of the pile. Naturally I was still inquisitive and spent many a day just wondering around windows explorer investigating what happened when you did this and that. The modern user in me wonders how I didn’t manage to cause the PC to combust spontaneously on any one of those occaisons but somehow it survived, even into the modern era running Win98 and 2000 before the ageing beast was so heavily fallen behind the pack that an upgrade was necessary. I was perhaps the loudest voice in the household demanding that we got a new PC, having fallen behind my peers in the gaming stakes…and in early 2000/01…my wish was granted.

Enter the Dell, a 2.4 Ghz monster that has seen so many upgrades, we nearly have the parts to build a new (or old PC, depending what way you’re looking at it) from what has been taken out of it. In its 7 year history (thus far) this PC has seen…

• Upgraded graphics cards…TWICE
• A second hard drive addition
• Upgrade of RAM to its maximum limit
• Replaced Power Supply (which involved taking some pliers to the back of the PC)
• Replaced CPU Cooling Fan (when one of these gives up the host…oh boy)

But heres the thing, all in all, despite the few occasional niggles, the Dell has done us well. Windows XP, despite its initial bad press, quickly pulled its socks up, sorted out its few minor bugs and matured into a DAMN good Operating System.

I know you all sense it coming, so here it is…
BUT…with the PhD offer, I realised that a laptop would be really useful for getting work done without having to skip over to the ICT suites, and whats more, I could carry on with my work and research at home without disrupting any work my dad occasionally might need the Dell for. The question was what laptop?

You see, Windows Vista may have inadvertently be the greatest advert for Mac or Linux the world will ever see. Microsoft HAD the market, all they needed to do was to ensure they produced a product that was capable of same stuff as XP, but could do it better, and with prettier effects…and maybe a few other bits and pieces on the side. Instead we get one of the most broken pieces of software, shot down by critics everywhere. Its handy that Bill Gates got out of M$ when he did…when the Titanic goes down, it sure sucks to be the Captain. The problem with Vista was that the early versions that appeared on early laptops and PCs were simply too buggy and too powerful. The fact is that for all the fancy graphics and add-ons that Vista brings, the OS uses a crippling amount of RAM running on its own…so much so that on one of the laptops I’m occasionally privy to use through my church, the laptop is incapable of running Powerpoint and Windows Media Player at the same time. A task that even Windows 98 can accomplish! This laptop wasn’t a hastily upgraded one either, VISTA SHIPPED with it. Such problems as I have experienced are but some of a sea of complaints about the OS…and how has Microsoft responded? By removing some of the bits and pieces of Vista for its latest versions. Thats right, new versions of Vista contain less than the original. You are essentially now purchasing Vista-lite, or Diet Vista, depending on your preferences. Sure, I have heard people tell me that Vista works fine if you turn background application A off, or if you turn security measure B off. But herein lies the question…why should you have to? Why couldn’t Microsoft launch a product that works from scratch? Even XP, with its tetchy beginnings never came close to press anywhere near as bad as this. Even the latest advert for Vista, entitled the Mojave experiment, conceeds the terrible press that Vista has recieved…then attempts to con consumers into buying their products by wowing the general public…in a CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT. Good grief microsoft, what are you trying to prove? Anyone with a bit of common sense realises you can make any product look good in a controlled environment, videogame gameplay in adverts being one of the biggest culprits. The Ad punchline? Try it for yourself. I did Microsoft, and it stinks.

This left me with either Apple, who I had been deriding for years, or Linux, the open-source nerd nirvana, and since I haven’t done any programming except that accomplished on a very basic level with BASIC, I decided to take a closer look at what the Macbook offered.

You see, in my opinion Apple have successfully managed to secure themselves that trendy-cool…*thing* about them. It goes beyond the I’m-a-Mac-I’m-a-PC adverts, even into the way that they present themselves at their press conferences, and how their software and hardware feels and operates. However, everyone knows people like “Mac” from the adverts in real life, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that person usually bugs the hell out of us. Its not that they’re a bad person, but they don’t half act smug about it. Perhaps this attack is a bit grasping at straws, but when your very advertisements set out to confirm this very same “cool and smug about it”, you can’t help but wish that once in a while, PC would win.

Exhibit A – And what everyone else is thinking when they see it.

Then there is the price. Yeah, I know with Apple you are buying brand quality, but the inflated asking price is still far too high, and nearly put me off. Theoretically, I could have bought a brand new laptop downgraded to XP (Vista is that bad) with the same specs as my mac for about £400-500 cheaper. But I didn’t want to feel like I was taking a step backwards. So a Mac it would have to be.
This brings me to my final criticism of Apple, and it comes in the form of one of its products.

Damn, this product makes me angry.

The Macbook Air screams to me about Apples inflated ego. Twice the price, half the product. No, really.

The mid-range macbook original that I have (i.e not macbook air or macbook pro) has the same memory, a more powerful processor, double the hard-drive capacity and, heres the kick in the nuts for the macbook air people…an optics drive (DVD-RW). Yeah, everything that the macbook air does is completed via wireless or the SINGULAR USB port on its side. Couple this with complaints about system crippling CPU overheating (especially in warmer climates) and suddenly the macbook air looks more like an expensive experiment in form alone. Also, ironic that they should call it Macbook Air, because thats what it disappears into.
However, I can’t criticise Apple without praising for what they have done right.

The one thing I’d heard from all Mac owners before I got my Macbook was that “it just works”. I never really understood that, because my Windows XP desktop works fine too. The meaning lies deeper within the actual daily use of the macintosh.

A prime example, take for example the deletion of a program from your windows system. You have to wade into your hefty Add/Remove Programs tab in your control panel, then scroll down to find your programme, click on delete to begin an uninstallation wizard, and sometimes need to manually delete some folders and other residue files from the system. With a Mac, you simply drag the program icon into the Trash Can. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it myself.

This is the short of it, the mac is simply designed to be as user friendly as possible. I’m quite sure Windows probably leads with the sheer amount of possible customisations you can do to everything on your system, however with that comes the added greivance of having to assign *most* if not all of the parameters involved. What Apple has done is to create a much more user friendly experience. As was described to me by someone showing me just some of the neat functions of the Mac, “whereas in Windows you think I want to do this, then have to look it up in the help, you just DO it on a Mac”.

The bottom line? Microsoft have taken a real battering from the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads from Apple, but have tried to answer back with THIS latest campaign.

All well in good, until you speak to the techies who have been able to identify what software compiled it…its not from Microsoft. How bad is your system when your adverts are even compiled with your rivals product?

Stay Classy Microsoft,

Ian

One God Enters…

I recieved some-what of a wake-up call from my OMS co-author the other night.  He reminded me that it has been quite some time since I have posted on our little patch of cyber-space.  In my defence, I have been somewhat preoccupied with University-type-stuff of late but aside from that, he was, for all intents and purposes, correct.  As such, much in the same way as a masters student who, after a year of vegetation, suddenly realises that his thesis is due in six weeks, I decided to commit to some form of writing as soon as possible.  That only left me with the tricky decision of what I could write about; a decision which, it turns out, wasn’t that tricky at all.

Given Ian’s reviews of The Dark Knight and The Mummy compared to my brief treatise on Ninja Gaiden II, it would appear, at least in the interim, that I am something akin to a games correspondant for OMS… A correspondant, that is, who has reviewed one game… So pretty much the worst games correspondant known to man.  Nevertheless, I was determined to sell games reviews as my OMS ‘go-to’ move.  That left me with the choice of which game to talk about in this post.  That really wasn’t much of a choice.  In the last three week’s I’ve only been playing one game.  More than this, I’ve played that game for 100 hours in the last three weeks.  That means that I’ve devoted almost 20% of the last three weeks of my life to one single game; quite a statistic any way you look at it.  Which game?  That would be Canadian developers Silicon Knights reimagination of norse mythology through a medium of science fiction; Too “it’s been in deveolpment for seven years” Human.

I should mention that at times this post seems to stray from being a Too Human review and instead flirts with being pure libel against Ben Croshaw.  I don’t like his reviews in general but, specifically related to this post, the same mans review of Too Human is severly misleading and, at times, just wrong.  Croshaw had this to say;

‘Too Human is my favourite kind of game to review because its bad.  None of that wishy washy mediocrity or “I have to admit that the soundtrack was nice” or that “the gameplay was slightly more entertaining than lacerating my gums with the edge of a rusty tin.” This is just all bad, all the time…’

I have to say, Ben Croshaw is my favourite kind of reviewer because he’s bad.  None of that non-committal, middling quality of “I have to admit, his video animations were alright” or that “his dialogue was just about as fun as waking up next to a horse’s head.”  He’s just all bad, all the time… In terms of my newest canonical vocabulary, he’s quite the chump.  I have a real dislike for him as a reviewer and, if I’m honest, that may or may not come through a little in this post.  In fact, I may have been a little over-zealous at times.  Truth be told, Croshaw is not the only reviewer who annoys me.  My problem with him, and in particular, his Too Human review, is that it is indicative of the worst kind of games journalism.  It disregards objectivity in persuit of purile humour.  I appreciate that Croshaw is probably, first and foremost, a comedian, and that his entertainment value may well propell his type of reviews into cult stardom on the forums of the net.  The problem is, however, that he has a responsibility, in his (all be it more limited) capacity as a games reviewer, to present his audience with objective facts, not humour derived from misinformation which, when translated into the real world, results in good games suffering in the shops.  That’s why this review tries to remain objective regarding Too Human and while yes, I admit from the outset that I am a fan of the game, I like to think I’ve considered the game as a whole; warts and all.

I was actually in Game this afternoon and discovered that the same game which I’d bought for £40 three weeks ago has been dropped to £20, a huge drop in three weeks by any standard.  It is still the second best selling game on the xbox 360 at the minute, just behind Madden ‘09.  That said, however, there are still Wii games outselling it.  This is a problem.  Too Human currently holds the infamous record of highest development budget of any game.  While Silicon Knights don’t really like to talk about it there is speculation that it was somehwere in and around $70 million.  For a game which is expected to be the first in a trilogy, it really needs to be exceeding all sales expectations in order to justify a sequel and there is some doubt regarding Too Human 2 : Rise of the Giant’s future.  One of the main reasons why Too Human has suffered on the shelves is the negative press which the game has recieved.  While across the board it has recied a fairly mediocre average score of in and around 6.5/10, I’ve seen it getting scores as low 4.  I can empathise with these reviews to a certain extent.  A friend of mine asked me last week if I could reccomment Too Human.  I told him I’d find it very hard to reccomend it to anyone.  Allow me to elaborate somewhat.

I couldn’t tell you my favourite game of all time.  There’s no way I could definatively place any game in a numebr one spot.  I have, however, specualted as to what might appear in a hypothetical ‘Top 10 list.’  Games therein would include the likes of Reisdent Evil 4, Baldur’s Gate 2, Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid 3, Battlefield Vietnam and Guild War’s Prophecies.  I’d say that when I look back at this in a few months time, Too Human will be strongly contesting a place within it.  For me, its just THAT good.  It seems odd, therefore, that I couldn’t even reccomend it to a friend.  You see my problem is that I know if I reccommeded it to people, for every one person who loved it, there’d be another who’d ask me why I convinced them to waste their money on Too Human.  I don’t blame people who think this.  I have a good fried who bought the game, played through the 12-ish hours of the campaign and then traded it in.  His reasons?  He was bored of the ‘hack and slash combat,’ ‘he was bored with the repeditive levels’ and he was ’utterly fed up with dying.’  Much as I would hate to say this to my good friend, comments like this demonstrate a distinct lack of understanding regarding the game.  This is why 50% of my friends and probably 50% of the gamers in the world will not enjoy Too Human.  They simply won’t understand the game.  That lack of understanding, however, is not his fault.  It is the game’s.  It tell’s you nothing.  It explains nothing.  The games producer, Denis Dyack, says thats there is simply too much information to put in a manual and there’s no other reasonable place to put it.  Denis, much as I have the utmost respect for his games, clearly missed the two-hour seminar on ‘tutorial levels’ when he was at ‘game development school.’  It’s like being five and getting a bike for Christmas, then asking your Dad to teach you how to ride the bike because you’re so excited about it only to find that your Dad takes you to the top of a hill and reads the afternoon paper while you continually fall off the bike into devestatingly painful bramble at the side of the road.  In this analogy, you, play yourself, the bike is Too Human, your Dad is the game development team and the bramble is ‘that’ death animation.  The thing about that analogy is that is holds perfectly true for Too Human.  Yes, you could throw the bike from you, tell your Dad that he sucks and then storm off, much in the same way that Yahtzee Croshaw, of Zero Punctuation fame, seems to have done.  If, however, you persevere, perhaps buy a guide or look up a wikipedia article on it, consult youtube videos or check online forums, you’ll eventually find yourself perfectly able to ‘ride your bike.’  When that moment arrives, you’ll suddenly realise that you’re in possession of a game which is one of the most rewarding I’ve certainly ever played.  I know, however, that there will be people out there who, unless they are captivated by a game within the first five minutes, will simply give up on it. So put it this way, if I could get my friends or indeed you, the OMS readers, to commit to investing time in Too Human, it comes with my highest reccomendation.  Be warned, however, that reccomendation comes with a sub-clause: you will have to power through those frustrating hours where you know… well, nothing.

The 12-ish hour campaign which so many people complain about is really only your entry into the game.  After its completed and your character, the Norse God Baldur, has ascended to somewhere in and around lvl. 30 out of 50, each section of the four levels can be played over and over again with different enemy spawns each and every time.  More than this, the game induces a sense of drug-like adiction and you will find yourself playing it at 4am “just waiting for that next armour drop.”  This is one of the games best qualities.  Enemies drop ‘loot’ in a pseudo dungeons and dragons fashion and there is nothing more fun than getting loot.  It’s more noticeable when you get to the higher levels and begin to crave the best loot in the game – those shiney red ‘elite drops’ which, when you pick them up, are accompanied by a triumphant norse riff, almost as if the halls of Valhalla are a-praise, congratulating you for your acomplishment.  Likewise, however, you’ll find yourself utterly infuriated by those enemies who refuse to drop you anything except comparatively low value purple items. 

Of course, your only way to access these items is by fighting your way through four of the most detailed levels I’ve ever seen.  I was playing co-op with a good friend of mine the other night and several times during the games final level, Helheim, he must have been infuriated with my asking him to stop on the middle of bridges and half way along walk ways, just so we could check out the detail of the scenery.  It’s truely stunning. 

Within these levels are, essentially, four types of enemies.  That’s right, four.  Goblins, Dark Elves, Undead and Trolls.  I’m still truely amazed at just how much gameplay Silicon Knights have got out of four enemies.  The way in which they have achieved this is through introducing two scales into each enemy type.  The first is a ’status effect’ scale which will determine whether the enemy is a fire enemy, a poison enemy or an ice enemy to name but a few.  These enemies convey their status effects upon you, unless, of course, you kill them in the correct way.  If you take the time to master this status effect scale, the game becomes so much more diverse and every battle will be different depending on the kind of status effects enemies posess.  The second scale has three increments which, again, influence how you have to go about attacking the given enemies.  Enemies could be ‘light’ meaning that they are vulnerable to ranged attacks like your rifle or pistols, they could be ‘dark’ meaning that they are resistant to your ranged weapons but vulnerable to melee damage like your hammer or your swords or alternatively they could be ‘unaligned’ in this scale meaning that they arent particularly resistant to anything.  Understanding these scales, what the game calls ‘polarisation,’ is the key to understanding the depth of the combat within Too Human. This really mixes it up and forces you, as the player to pause and think about combat and strategy before launching in.  Only a really underinformed reviewer would launch into combat blindly.  Mastering this combat and strategy leads to you dying an inherently less number of times meaning that anyone who complains incessantly about the death animation has no real justification for it in that theres a simple way to avoid it; don’t die.  This is why many reviewers lose hope in the game.  They don’t put any effort into figuring this out.  Theoretically speaking, you could play this game like any other generic hack ‘n’ slash game.  More than this, you probably coould play the majority of the campaign by just pushing forward on the right stick, but of course this seems rediculous and you would die… alot!  Too Human is not a generic hack ‘n’ slash game.  You have to employ a little bit of thought and effort into learning how to play it correctly and the game will reward you for it.  Once you’ve decided the best strategy for combat, you then have press on with exactly that; the combat. 

In Too Human melee combat is handled on the right analogue stick; something traditionally associated with the camera angle in-game.  One particular reviewer (guess who) was keen to point out that in third peron games, the right stick is confortable with camera angle control and should be left alone.  I can see his point.  I mean, it’s not like technology changes or tries to better itself and improve on the norm.  Everyone was quite happy with VHS and refused to buy into that silly DVD thing…  Alright, so that example’s a little convoluted, but still, you see my point.  I don’t think it’s fair to criticise a game for changing things up a bit and while the camera in Too Human is awkward at times, for the most part its very simple to centre behind you’re character model.  For the rest of the time the cinematic camera does a great job in capturing some of the most wonderful shots of the well designed levels – angles which just wouldn’t be achieveable with a right stick camera. 

With cinematic camera in operation you, the player, are left with an interface which is built around rotating, not tapping, the right stick in order to fight your enemies.  While this seems tricky and unwieldy at first, after investing a few extra hours in the game it becomes virtually second nature.  The ranged combat is a little more temperamental.  The ranged targeting system seems a little ‘off’ at times, with frustrating scenarios unfolding where your character will be left targeting a dead enemy while the rest of the horde continues to advance upon you.  The dual-wielded pistols, in particular, are difficult to pin down with your off-hand at times straying off into the back of beyond and targeting something completely random.  Rifle and canon combat, however, is a little easier to get to grip with; again, rotation on the right stick cycling through targets and a quick double tap on the same stick prioritising missiles and other things whcih may come at you through the air.  What really blows me away about the game is, once again, the diversity which the game manages to build around, in essence, two combat styles; ranged and melee.  How it achieves this is not only through the multitude of weapon and armour types which the game boasts but, perhaps moreso, in the way that your character design inherently affects the way in which you have to play the game.

Too Human offers five classes (at the minute) to choose your character from, ranging from the heavily armoured defender to the quick and devestating berserker to the ballistic speciaist commando.  Within each of these classes is a three pronged skill tree, each branch of which lends itself to a completely different way to use your characters assets.  On top of that, somewhere in and around level 13, you will have to allign your character as either human; that is to say a fast combo specialist or as cybernetic; more concerned with hit points, armour and big damage.  This means that even though there are only 5 classes and, fundamentally, two forms of combat, the differences in the way each character will use those types of combat are virtually infinite, giving the player scope to play with limitless character builds.

In this way, it almost inflects MMO properties within a single player context; the multiple charater builds, the volume of ’loot,’ the depth of combat and subtle differences between each and every fight all adding to an experience which makes you, the player, feel like your involved in one perpetual PvE experience.  This is, perhaps, the best way to look at Too Human.  In the same way that a one page blog entry on World of Warcraft couldn’t possibly convey every tiny aspect of the game, this brief review only gives you an idea of the depth within Too Human. There are, however, things which I haven’t even mentioned; things like charms, items in game which require quests to complete but which reward you with various weapon and armour effects.  There is just so much game in there for your money.  I mean I am 100 hours in and I’ve only played with one cybernetically aligned character class.  Within this character, I’ve already played with my build twice, discovering, each time, a new way to use my characters assets.  I could play the same class again, but human align him and find a whole different way again to play the character.  Alternatively I could play with one of the four other classes and again have to choose which assests to focus on and which alignment my character will persue.  All in all, I’ve played the game one way for 120 hours and, even at the games most fundamental level, theres another 9 ways for me to play it.  That’s remarkable.  This is why Too Human suffers in games reviews.  The run-of-the-mill reviewer will be given a bundle of games to review in a certain amount of time, play through the campaign mode and then give them a score.  That may work fine with Bioshock or with Ninja Gaiden II but it doesn’t for Too Human.  I honestly believe that no one is fit to review that game unless they’ve invested the kind of time in it that genuine fans have.  This isn’t to say, as some people have already misconstrued, that a reviewer must be a fan of the game.  If that were the case, there would be far less objectivity in the world of games journalism than there is at present.  No, what I am suggesting is that with some games, Too Human amongst them, you have to be prepared to put into a game what you expect to get out of it.  Too Human requires that resolve and anything else will doubtlessly result in negativity.  If, however, reviewers invested that little more time, then they’d see why genuine fans are genuine fans, but instead, we see the net smeared with pointlessly critical reviews.

I refuse to put a score on Too Human.  I have much more to do in the game and many more hours play before I can consider myself acceptable to do so.  Even then, in fact, I may never be adequately qualifeied to score it simply because it’s a game I never see myself ‘completing.’  Why?  There is, realistically speaking, more playability in Too Human than any other xbox 360 game which I own, and thats including Oblivion.  Perhaps, in the interest of objectivity, I could explain this comparrison further.  This is not a simple Too Human Vs. Oblivion comparison.  That would be almost impossible to do given the differences between the two games.  What I’m simply trying to get across is that Too Human, in my opinion, manages to acomplish in the space of its four levels, more game play than even the vast game that is Oblivion.  Let none say that I haven’t played my fair share of Oblivion.  My current play time in Oblivion is in and around 82 hours.  Much like Too Human you would have to spend a decent amount of time with Oblivion to appreciate its depth; the versatility of its equipment system, the sheer expanse of the landscape, the awesome roleplaying system and the engine which allows you to pick up literally everything in the game.  I suppose, however, in the context of this review, my main issue is that of replayablilty.  With a game like Oblivion, now that I’ve finished the main storyline and every side quest that the game has to offer I find myself looking at the game as finished.  Yes, there are more classes and races to play with but when I flick past it’s disc in my CD holder, it’s like I’ve already stamped it as complete.  Thats not the case with Too Human.  The way in which the game has been developed makes you genuinely excited to play that next class or to experiment with a different allignment or excited about a new armour drop because it forces you to re-think your skill tree.  At the crux of this comparrison lies simple issues with balance in Oblivion.  I could play two different races in oblivion, but if I specialised both characters in archery, they play exactly the same.  In the same way, magic users in Oblivion get to a stage that no matter what their equipment is or what their race is, they are equally broken and imbalanced.  Too Human doesn’t suffer from this.  It is superbly balanced both within and between classes and even the slightest changes to equipment and skills completely change how characters should be played.  This is where the true depth of Too Huam lies and where it far surpasses games like Oblivion. 

I am, and continue to be, utterly blown away by it.

Yours,

Jim

And now for the Hat-Trick…

Three posts from Ian in as many days, why the flurry of activity one might ask? The answer, dear reader, is that I have been streaming so many videos and gaming so much of late that I have used ALL my alloted bandwidth for the month only two thirds of the way into it and so my internet access has been throttled so much that I feel that even an old 33.6kbps dialup modem would probably fetch me faster speeds during peak times. The restrictions are relieved for off-peak usage (quite thankfully, might I add), forcing my browsing to mainly fall in between the hours of midnight and 4pm. This of course means that for the greater deposition of the day for which I am awake I am now no longer able to seek refuge on the intertubes. This has therefore forced me to seek other means to spend my time, such as, but not limited to…

What do you mean they’re finished?

Watching the Olympics

Man shall not live on Super Noodles alone…

Developing culinary skills

Its all about the burn…

Do some exercise

Guitar…you’re doing it wrong!

Play the guitar

24/7 Big Brother!? NOOOOOOoooooo

Watch some TV

Stay classy,

Ian

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Review

For those of you who don’t really pay attention to movies, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is the third in the series of the modern Mummy movies, the first of which was a very loose remake of a 1932 horror movie of the same name. The difference between the original pre-war movie and the modern trilogy is that the horror movie feel has been dumped in theme of a much more swashbuckling adventure romp. Herein lies the bones of the trilogy…the movies are more like Indiana Jones meets Pirates of the Caribbean and are fleshed out by witty one-liners (mainly courtesy of Brendan Fraser), clever visual gags and spectacular action scenes, many of which are filled with gorgeous CGI effects. So now that we’ve set the movie in context, lets review the latest offering…

+++ Positives +++

• Its the same old adventuring romp
• Brendan Fraser still funny
• Delightful in-joke to the casting change of Rachel Weisz to Maria Bello for the part of Evie.
• Impressive CGI.
• Yeti’s. Seriously.
• The backstory is inventive, with clever and creative use of chinese history eg The terracotta army is a key plot point

— Negatives —

• Some really under par acting by some of the cast. Luke Ford I’m looking at you in particular.
• Gaping plot holes all over the place. You honestly have to force yourself to ignore them.
• Totally unnecessary and pretty unused relationship between one of the supporting Villains, a Chinese general and one of his officers. What in the world was that about?
• No Rachel Weisz (she left due to “scripting problems – I can see why). Maria Bello just not good enough.
• Michelle Yeoh badly underused. Also appears to have aged not so well, but hopefully that was just make up.
• Some plot points make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Case in point – When Han bathes in the pool of life at Shangri-La he re-emerges as a THREE HEADED DRAGON.
• Too creative with Chinese history at some points.

Conclusion: The movie is pretty much what it says on the tin. Its a Mummy movie, set in China. If you really enjoyed the first 2, by all probability you will probably enjoy this one for the same reasons. Be warned however, it is definitely the weakest of the trilogy, perhaps on a par with the Scorpion King spin-offs.

Overall rating – 4 Terracotta soldiers out of 10.
Stay Classy,

Ian