I finally got to pick up my Wii yesterday, without having to camp out or wait in the cold. Gina managed to snag a pre-order, so we had a big time yesterday with Super Monkey Ball, Wii Sports, Zelda, and Trauma Center (I’ll save my thoughts about Red Steel until I’ve had time to play more of it).
Not to put too fine a point on it, the controller kicks ass. It uses a hybrid gyroscope/optical sensor design, which I feared would be imprecise and gimmicky. Luckily, it works surprisingly well. It feels extremely precise, whether you’re hunt-n-pecking your way across a keyboard interface, or bowling in Wii Sports.
I’ve spent every free minute for the last few days playing either Zelda or Trauma Center (if I’m by myself), or Monkey Ball and Wii Sports with Gina. There’s a good reason that there are a ton of mini-game filled party games for the Wii. They’re just a helluva lot of fun.
Trauma Center is basically a rehash of the DS original, with better controls. Instead of moving the stylus to select your instrument, you use the analog stick on the nunchuck. It’s quick, precise, and easy; exactly what the way it should be on a game where speed plays such a crucial role. Activating the “Healing Touch” using a controller gesture is much faster too.
Zelda reminds me more of Ocarina of Time than any other Zelda game I’ve played. I’ve always enjoyed the Zelda games, and this one hasn’t disappointed. The game does start off slow, it gives you 3-5 hours to get used to the controls before the difficulty really ramps up and you have the first boss fight. I’m only about 7 hours in so far, but I’ll keep you updated on this.
A story at Lifehacker about thin, bookmark-friendly pens made me think about my two favorite writing utensils. I spend a fair amount of time either taking notes or marking up pages, and I’ve found a couple of pens that work great for me.
The Uniball Signo RT Micro Gel has a 0.38mm tip that makes absolutely the thinnest lines I’ve ever seen from a ballpoint pen. It’s gel-based ink doesn’t seem to ever glob up or drip, and it writes on all but the shiniest papers. If you don’t like narrow tips, avoid this pen. It’s also worth noting that the medium version of this pen sucks. It delivers much too much ink to the paper all the time. Unlike many narrow-tip pens, this one moves very well across the page, only digging into the paper if you actually press pretty hard.
The other pen I use is a Marvy Le Pen in green. It’s a very basic shape and color, but works on virtually everything I’ve ever tried it on, and its very fine 0.3mm tip lets me cram a lot of comments into a small space, whether I’m proofing pages or editing copy. The plastic tip delivers a little more ink than the Signo, and it’s barrel shape makes it a bit uncomfortable for extended writing tasks, but it’s a great editing pen, and it comes in a variety of colors.
Both are relatively cheap, so when I inevitably lose one, I don’t want to kill myself.
Posted: November 10th, 2006 | Author:will | Filed under:Video Games, Xbox 360 | Comments Off
Last night I was pretty pissed to be stuck playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance while everyone else on my friends list was enjoying Gears of War (Thanks Gamestop!). After spending a few too-short hours playing a little multiplayer and a little singleplayer, I understand what the fuss about this game was all about.
It’s taken me a few hours to get the knack of using cover, then popping out when a baddie is reloading to kick his ass. It’s a technique I’ve always used in first-person shooters, but it’s an actual part of the game design in Gears.
Two complaints so far. First, the checkpoints frequently save just before a cutscene or scripted event. That’s lame. Second, where’s the party system? Halo 2′s make-a-party-of-your-friends-then-we’ll-find-some-opponents-for-you matchmaking system was damn near perfect. It looks like Gears is going to have a large enough playerbase for a similar scheme to work, so let’s have it!
Posted: November 5th, 2006 | Author:will | Filed under:PS2, Video Games | Comments Off
I’m working on my review of Guitar Hero 2 for Games Radar, which is really the type of work I don’t mind doing. I spent about 5 hours playing on Friday night–until my wrists and fingers couldn’t take anymore, and then played more on Saturday.
The short review is that it’s an improvement in virtually every way over Guitar Hero 1, and there’s even some stuff improved over the demo version of GH2. I’m also hearing that some stores are breaking the Tuesday release date, specifically Best Buy and Target, so get out there and get the game. The songlist is awesome, and the new co-operative mode—where one person plays lead guitar, and the other plays rhythm or bass—really, really kicks ass.
So, despite my local Gamestop employees best efforts to keep me from playing the game (“No sir, all eight copies behind the counter are preordered by people who haven’t been able to pick up their copies in the last five days”), I’m about two hours into Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and while it isn’t going to change the world, it’s been polished until it’s quite shiny and good.
Unlike the previous Raven beat ‘em up/action RPG X-men games, Ultimate Alliance gives you control over a boatload of characters from the entire Marvel universe, from Captain America and the rest of the Avengers to the Fantastic Four, on down to fan favorites like Daredevil and Deadpool (Flash-based playable character list). The basic concept is simple—take 4 superheroes of your choice, team them up, and smash your way through dungeons filled with both easy-to-defeat minions and a variety of supervillains (Mysterio, Scorpion, and Dr. Doom have showed up already).
It seems like the goofy everyone-must-be-running-the-same-resolution limitation is gone in the Xbox Live multiplayer, although everyone is still tied to the same camera, I don’t find that too objectionable. There are definitely better games coming out soon—Gears of War and Guitar Hero 2 both hit next week—but Ultimate Alliance is an entertaining diversion, and it’s something I can even see Gina playing with me and some friends on Live.
On my nightstand for the last couple of weeks have been a series of Preacher trade paperbacks, which I’ve really enjoyed. They fall nicely into my recent post-apocalyptic reading, from more of a Judeo-Christian bent than the zombie books I’ve been reading.
Oh, and they’re graphic novels—comic books. Thanks to the gang at the Shack for the recommendation.
I’m not going to describe plot (it would sound ridiculous), the art style (it would sound gratuitous), or even the characters (vampires, angels, and fat men… oh my!). I will say that the Preacher combines the religious overtones of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, a fair helping of the gratuitous, over-the-top violence of Sin City, and a dash of genuine, homegrown perversity.
It’s edgy and interesting, and I’ve enjoyed the hell out of it so far.
Posted: November 1st, 2006 | Author:will | Filed under:Maximum PC stuff | Comments Off
This story at BoingBoing is really interesting to me. It says that Myspace is now prohibiting people from uploading music that appears to infringe on copyright (they’re using the Gracenote info to tell what’s copyrighted and what isn’t).
It’s really interesting to me, because I’ve contacted Myspace three times asking them to remove copyrighted Maximum PC content. To date, I’ve gotten no response. It’s funny, because the guy who set up this profile copy/paste’d the content directly from the front page of the website, and is using images hosted on our server, so it’s pretty blatant what’s happening.
On my nightstand for the last couple of weeks have been a series of
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