Splinter Cell – WTF?

I finished the new Splinter Cell game on my 360 this weekend, and while I really dig the new “Double Agent” gameplay, where you have sets of conflicting goals for each mission–both the NSA and the terrorist organization you’re infiltrating will tell you to do stuff, and you actually have to make tough choices. The addition of tons of hiding places throughout every map is also a major improvement. In every room there’s at least one place to hide, but many rooms have three or four desks and beds to crawl under and lockers to hide in. Forcing the player to make tough choices is definitely something I can get behind.

There are a few things I really strongly dislike. First, the ending is really abrupt. Like Halo 2 abrupt. There are multiple endings depending on the choices you’ve made, but the game basically just stops. That’s weak, especially considering the events of the game. However that problem’s minor compared to the hack-job that they ran on the multiplayer portion of the game.

The 360 version has no narrative-driven co-op levels that I can find (12 missions shipped on the original Xbox version of Double Agent). Instead it ships with a bunch of co-op training missions that feature insanely difficult AI with perfect aim and knowledge of your every move, whether it can see you or not.

I really enjoyed playing co-op in Chaos Theory, when I managed to get another person available with an hour or two to spend on a mission. I’m not the first person to talk about this, but the removal of the booby-trap gadgets (and the motion sensor vision mode) from the mercs takes away a lot of the fun of the merc portion of the multiplayer game. The new mode is much faster paced, but it lacks a lot of the sublety of Chaos Theory and Pandora Tomorrow’s sublime and complex multiplayer game.

The Road

I’m absolutely buried today, but I wanted to take a moment between editing tasks to talk about The Road. This is the post-apocalyptic equivalent of For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Instead of pitting the protagonists against mindless zombies or other supernatural beasties, The Road firmly sets the charred remains of the world as the enemy. All of the other horrors inflicted on the survivors in the novel are a direct result of the harsh nature of a used-up husk of a planet.
The protagonists are a boy, born after the (presumed) nuclear war that shrouded the Earth in ash and clouds, and his father. They walk, scrounging enough food, water, clothing, and shoes to survive on a day-to-day basis. They’re going to the coast, but beyond that vague destination and day-to-day survival, they don’t have any long-term goals. Characters who find joy in a tin of pears or a can of Coke put our current consumer-driven lifestyle into sharp relief.
However, what The Road does best is kill the romanticized notion that being the last man on Earth would be anything but a nightmare.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

I usually don’t post crap from Boing Boing, since everyone reads Boing Boing, but this is undoubtedly the worst idea I’ve ever heard of.

They’re making toy Frisbees look like landmines as part of a landmine awareness scheme. You pick up the Frisbee, and on the bottom it lets you know about the perils of the millions of landmines strewn around the planet.

Educating people about the dangers of landmines is a Good Thing, but their execution is this campaign is at best idiotic and at worst, criminal. Think about it from a kid’s perspective. What these idiots at Clear Path International are doing is training the kids of Singapore that all you have to do to get a free Frisbee is pick up this thing that looks like a landmine. Really frickin’ smart move there guys.

Why does no one ever think of the children??

Pre-order the Wii? Probably not

I got up a few hours early this morning to get a shot at a Wii preorder from my local Gamestop. By the time I arrived, roughy two hours prior to opening, there were about 40 people in line, for a store that said they had roughly 20 consoles coming. By the look of things, the first ten or so people had spent the night sleeping on the pavement in front of the store.

I’m just going to wait for the overpriced bundles online :)

Edit: Looks like my wonderful wife managed to score one after she dropped me off at work! Yay Gina!

Comcast, continued

I’ve been so pissed about the Comcast thing that I can’t really post about it. On Saturday, the installer finally came to the house. He admitted that he removed the multiswitch from my line, disconnecting my service (which is provided by his competitor). But, he claims that he left the hardware in question in my basement. Unfortunately, sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night when I realized my TV wasn’t working, it apparently grew legs and walked away.

Anyway, I called the main Comcast number back and was told that nothing was likely to happen until Monday. I was told that the installer’s supervisor would call me on Monday. Naturally he didn’t. He did finally call me today, but I missed the call and didn’t have time to call him back. Duty calls and all that. I’m going to call him first thing in the morning, when I’m good and fired up.

I’ve given up hope of actually getting my gear back, I just want money to replace the hardware I’ve lost. I’d rather not have to take it to small claims court, but I’ve put the wheels in motion, should that become necessary.

Fucked by Comcast, Part 2

Here’s the update. After speaking to my new neighbors, who were very cool about the entire thing, I found out that Comcast did indeed make an appearance yesterday. So, my gracious neighbor promises to complain, and at around noon they called.

The woman who called (Trish) was very nice, and totally apologetic. After our first talk, I hung up the phone feeling pretty good about the whole thing, feeling like it would actually be resolved today. She even gave me her direct line, so I wouldn’t have to wait through the Comcast voice jail. She promised someone from the local office would be back in touch with me shortly, and we’d set up a time to get my hardware back. Trish gets an A+

By 4PM, no one had called, so I called Trish back. She said she’d take care of it, and to call back if I hadn’t heard anything by 5. Still pretty good. I’ll give this conversation a B-

At around 5, the local dispatcher calls me and says, “Our technician’s at your house to fix your cable, are you there?” Of course I’m not there. Unsurprisingly, I’m at work. I tell the dispatch person that I wasn’t told that someone would be coming, and I’m still at work. I suggested that the guy could either leave my hardware with my neighbors or slide it under the front door, and I even offered to meet the guy someplace to pick up my gear. They said he’d be in touch with me, but naturally he wasn’t. D+

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Comcast fucked me again

I didn’t think it was possible, as I haven’t been a Comcast customer in more than five years, but they’ve done it again.

As I sat down to watch a little TV this evening, my DirecTiVo told me that it’s lost the satellite signal. It was a little windy last night, so I figured maybe the dish got blown a little off axis and I’d have to make an adjustment. I’m really glad I checked the basement wiring area before I dangled my ass over the 30 foot drop you have to go over in order to reach our roof.

Apparently, during the day today my new neighbors had Comcast come hook up their cable service. Interestingly, despite the fact that the wires going to each unit are clearly labeled with the apartment number, the Comcast guy took it on himself to disconnect the lines from my dish to my home and remove my $300 multiswitch.

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Rain + Dog Poop = Frogs?

I’ve spent the last three months going to the dog park at the end of my block at least 4 times a day, and I have not once seen a frog. However, this evening, when walking Chloe in the rain, I spotted my first Bay Area Poop Frog. The little guy was about 2 inches long, and much, much more afraid of me than of Chloe. She didn’t manage to eat him, but he gave her a pretty good chase.

Anyway, my question is “Has the frog been living in the park undiscovered for ‘lo these many months, or was he spontaneously generated when water hit the poop? Or possibly, did he migrate to the park on a raging gutter current?” I doubt the world will ever know.

World War Z

I finished reading Max Brooks’ World War Z last night, and I really enjoyed his take on the zombie apocalypse. Instead of writing a straight expository narrative, Brooks’ novel tells the tale of the living undead overrunning the world via a series of first-person accounts. The book is an oral history of the battle between the living and the undead, and it really works well.

This is the second Max Brooks book in a row that I’ve read, and I’m really impressed with his work. Presenting this story as a series of interviews could have been nothing more than a gimmick, but instead Brooks uses it as a way to let the reader figure out all the stuff that the zombie war survivors take for granted.

Brooks does a great job capturing the voices of his characters, from the insane ex-President to the Israeli foot soldier to the civilian survivors to deep sea divers to the profiteers. Each story adds either some tidbit of information about the outbreak or introduces a new strategy that the survivors used to clear out the infested zones. Despite the fact that you know that humans (and the characters being “interviewed”) eventually triumph, the tension is almost unbearable in places.

Like all great post-apocalyptic stories, World War Z is a reflection of today’s society, and like all great zombie stories, the real enemy isn’t the undead, it’s man.

I’ve only got a couple of more post-apocalypse themed books to read–Monster Nation and The Road–then I think I’ll read something upbeat and cheerful.