First Impression: Metroid Prime 3

Yes, I am always behind the curve, even for me. I picked this game up at Christmas and just got around to starting it. Still, I've only put about 2 or 3 hours into the game, and I already have quite a bit to say about it.

I'll start with the good. People who praised this game's control scheme were speaking profound truths. I love the mouse and keyboard, but the wiimote pulls a very close second when it comes to controllers for first-person shooters. I've played Halo 3, and I spent every moment wishing I had a mouse. I don't feel that at all when I play Metroid Prime 3, and that is very noticeable.

Of course, the scheme is only about 95% awesome sauce. There are a few things that could have been done better. The "scanning visor" mode is clunky and awkward, especially when you're trying to identify the thing that is currently shooting you in the face. It's not terrible, but it could have been better.

Okay, now the bad. The game plays exactly like a first-person Legend of Zelda with lasers instead of swords. This is not a good thing. Each area is designed the same way Zelda dungeons are, except that you have absolutely no rhyme or reason as to the actual design of the place you're in. Why would all of these people have door locks that can only be opened by bombs and can only be reached by going through small tunnels? Yeesh.

I don't know the story of the series overall, as I never played any of the earlier entries, but the writing so far is about on par with Twilight Princess. The story, in whatever sense it's there, is simply whatever shuttles you along to the next dungeon. When you're in a "dungeon," suit upgrades are located exactly where you need them, again in spite of rhyme or reason.

Here, however, is the worst party that I've seen so far. At some point early in the game, you get knocked out during a firefight. You wake up one month later. Normally a month long coma would be a big deal. So what happens? You wake up still in your power suit, except some technicians tells you that they've been experimenting on you for the last month and hey! Check out your snazzy new powers! All right, back to work with you!

Um, so did they at least take you out of the suit to treat your wounds? Or did they just leave you in there while doing their experiments? It's both a terrible plot hole and extremely creepy to boot. Nintendo, what were you thinking?

So, only a few hours in and my overall thoughts? Fun to play, as long as you're not thinking terribly hard about it.

WWJC?

Earlier today I was listening to Fear the Boot, a podcast about tabletop roleplaying games. One of these days, if I ever get around to updating my blogroll, I'll add them to the list. The episode I was listening to revolved around religion in roleplaying games, and it's an interesting topic.

In DnD, you can play as a cleric. The cleric is dedicated to his or her deity, and gets all of their divine spells from said god. However, most clerics don't sit in the temple and preach but go out into the world on wild adventures. There's really no comparison to anything you might find today.

The humorous thought this brought to mind is the "favored weapon" system, wherein each deity favors a certain weapon, which allows the clerics who worship said deity access to that weapon. This makes me wonder . . . what would Jesus carry?

I can humorously imagine my pastor carrying a sawed-off shotgun around because it was Jesus' preferred firearm. But in seriousness, what might that weapon be? I can think of three possibilities:

• Sword - Jesus did say that he came bearing the sword.
• Spear - Lance of Longinus, anyone? I guess Jesus wouldn't remember spears too fondly, but I can imagine them having some sort of significance.
• Whip - Jesus did clear the moneychangers out of the temple courtyard with one. Perhaps he was skilled in its use.

Anything I might have left off? Add your two cents.

Some geeky thoughts

This post will probably increase my dork factor by a large magnitude, but what do I care? All four of you readers can judge me as much as you want.

Earlier last year, I was reading Shamus Young's synopsis of his Dungeons and Dragons campaign as he wrote it on his blog. It sounded neat, like something I might actually enjoy. So, back towards the beginning of the fall semester, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons. I actually have two games going; in one I'm the game master (Note to my players: Don't follow that link above, I'm using his campaign as my basic outline), while in the other I'm just a player. I've never played an RPG aside from video games, and those have almost nothing in common with their tabletop brethren.

The point of this post isn't really to talk about the games themselves, but more to talk about the things I've learned since starting.

First and foremost, I can understand why people have a hard time picking up the hobby. Bad press over the years and obnoxious, stereotypical fanboys already stack the cards against it, but most people don't have a soft spot in their heart for reading text books. When you first start out, you typically have a lot of rules to learn. Now, that's not to say that you can't do it in easily digestible bits; nobody starts out learning chemistry with the equations for electron behavior. Still, it's intimidating. Ideally, you'd have someone who already plays introduce you and hold your hand through it.

But that directly contradicts my next thought: There's really a lot of people these games should appeal to. Dungeons and Dragons was spawned by The Lord of the Rings, and that's pretty popular since the movies. Even if fantasy isn't your cup of tea, most people have a fictional genre they love (historical, sci-fi, horror, etc.), and there's an RPG out there that would probably fit that bill.

I realize that some people liken it to being an 8 year old "playing pretend," but I like to think of it in other ways. It definitely gives aspiring actors/actresses an outlet for practicing their craft in their spare time. Writers also get to put their skills to use. If you've ever watched a movie or played a video game and thought, "Oh, I wouldn't have done it like that, I'd have totally done it differently," well, these games give you a chance to play that out. Did you ever read those "choose your own adventure" books? It's a lot like that, except instead of a book you get a live narrator.

Hm . . . I have more thoughts, but this post is getting quite lengthy already. Perhaps I'll add more in the future.

Retro Review: Evil Genius

So, usually I like to post a review of whatever game I've been playing lately, but this one seems to be reaching a little. Evil Genius was released in 2004. I was actually playing it when I started the blog, but I wasn't writing about video games back then. Being as old as it is, the game is probably hard to find anymore, but I'd still recommend getting it if you see it.

In the game you're, guess what, an evil genius bent on world domination. Using your wealth and endless supply of minions, you build up a base and commit vile deeds around the globe until you've effectively cowed all the governments of the world.

While that might sound out of character for me, it's all very cartoony. I'd say it has a "James Bond" style to it, but it's closer to an "Austin Powers" theme. This shows through in the music, in the artwork, and the general structuring of the game. It's really quite fun.

The game is essentially a base-management simulation. You have to structure your base in certain ways and order your minions around in others to make everything work just right. Build essential operations too far apart, and your minions might collapse while trying to perform essential tasks. Build too many, and you might run out of money. Steal too much money, and the forces of justice will hassle your island home non-stop. It's a delicate balance.

I enjoy the game a lot. I suppose that's obvious, since I'm playing through a second time. It's very easy to lose several hours to the game and not realize you did so. The downside is that the game can be brutally frustrating at times, even on the simplest of settings. Towards the end of the game, the difficulty ramps up considerably, and even the most cautious of players can find themselves quickly swamped.

Don't let that dissuade you from pulling the game off the shelf, however. It's a lot of fun. I would say that system requirements shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not sure who I'd be kidding with that. Despite the simple graphics, the load times are ridiculous and even my relatively beefy system gets choked up every so often. Still, it has theoretically low system requirements, so go ahead and pull it out of the bargain bin if you find it.

Anthropogenic . . . volcanoes?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm no climate scientist. When there's talk about "global warming" or "climate change," I politely decline to give a definitive statement because I have no idea who is speaking from solid data/principle and who is speaking from the wrong end of their digestive tract.

However, one thing I will say is that I don't think we should start spending billions of dollars trying to solve a problem that we don't really understand and might not even exist. Nothing involving the climate/ecosphere/Captain Planet is ever as simple as it might seem.

Case in point: This recent article from Science about the discovery of active volcanoes underneath the West Antarctic ice sheets. I've read about that ice sheet's regression as proof of anthropogenic global warming. Now it looks like some of that (How much? Good question.) may be due to a volcano. Unless someone is willing to blame the volcano on carbon emissions as well, I think it's safe to say that we might not understand what's at work there as much as we thought we did.

But what do I know? I'm no climatologist.

Depends on the meaning of "straight"

In the last post, Jen and I had a discussion in the comments about why I don't support John McCain. As reference for my remarks, I posit some articles: This one by Ann Coulter, and if that isn't your style, this one by the Washington Times.

So yeah . . . McCain won't be getting my endorsement. I bet he's just crushed.

Still Not Dead

This is going to be one of those cliche (I had the right character in there for the 'e', but Blogger was choking on the special character, so now it's just a regular letter) posts about why I haven't been posting much lately. I wish I could tell you it's because I've been off fighting for the resistance against the zombie menace, but I don't think that one stands up to scrutiny for very long.

The long and short of it is that the other things I've been busy with in life haven't been worth blogging about. School's out, so my "science intake" has decreased dramatically. I haven't played any new video games in a while, even though there's a couple burning holes on my shelf. Even my standard surfing has been rather dull, as the news is quite preoccupied with the presidential primaries.

Me, I don't feel like writing about the primaries. I wanted Fred Thompson, but his chances in the race are slim at this point. Right now the "leaders" are John McCain and Mike Huckabee, both of whom are unacceptable choices to me as well. At this point, Mitt Romney is the "fall back" candidate for me. All the news analysis in the world won't change that, and I've no intention of writing about the primaries on here just so I can explain to people why their preferred candidate doesn't work for me. (I'm looking at you, Paulbots)

So there you have it. By all means, don't stop coming by. I'm certain the writers block will crumble at some point soon.

Diminishing Returns

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not quite dead. December being what it is, what with all the holidays and people returning to town and new video games and what not, you tend to become distracted. Or rather, I tend to become distracted.

In any event, I spent New Year's Even in Chicago with some old friends from ISU, and it was quite a lot of fun. What didn't hurt was that our gracious host had purchased this some months ago:

Yes, that is a BIG television. Seventy-three inches, in fact.

On the one hand, I'm quite jealous. Who wouldn't love having that behemoth taking over their living room, the envy of cinephiles everywhere?

On the other hand, there comes a point at which it's not very helpful to have a larger television. We spent a good portion of my time there playing Halo 3 on this monstrosity. Even with the HD hook-up for the Ecks Bawks, there was still pixelation in a lot of the graphics. Don't even get me started on what the Wii graphics looked like . . . it wasn't as good looking as it was on smaller televisions. Our host still has his old N64, and he's said that it's all but unplayable on that television. I can only imagine.

He doesn't own an HD/Blu-ray DVD player, so normal DVDs suffer from pixelated quality as well. Even HD television, the ideal medium for such a TV, starts showing problems around the edges at such a size.

This makes me curious what the best TV size is. At what point does a larger screen start impinging on visual quality?

Game Review: Orcs and Elves

Holiday blogging . . . ugh.  I'm waiting for the people I'm going to spend New Year's eve with to finish sleeping off their drinks last night, so I thought I'd throw a quick post up while I had the chance.

I received Orcs and Elves for Christmas for the DS.  It's a fairly interesting game.  Made by id software, the game is a first-person RPG, the likes of which I haven't seen in ages.  Think Doom, but with swords and a magic wand instead of guns and a chainsaw.

Like most RPGs, the main character doesn't speak . . . ever.  You're guided around by your talking magic wand, who speaks to the ghosts of dwarves for you.  If that sounds strange, then you may not enjoy the story.  It's pretty simple, but the draw is the gameplay, not the tale.  

The game mechanics are decent.  It seemed a tad easy, but I played it on the easiest setting to get a feel for it.  Like the older games by id, you can only look straight ahead, in one of four directions.  Each time you perform an action, either moving, attacking, opening a door, or drinking a potion, you use a turn.  Then all the monsters in the vicinity get to take a turn.  It's an interesting way of dealing with the awkward movement scheme, although it can prove frustrating when some monsters get more turns than you.

It's fun to play in a "throw-away" kind of way, but the game is short.  I'd say I put it to rest after somewhere around 5 hours of play.  I guess that's not terrible for a portable game, but I've come to expect a longer lifespan out of my RPGs.  

Gamespot didn't give it an official review, despite all their hype leading to its release.  If you wanted my opinion, I would give the game a 6.5/10.  There's no music during the game, the graphics don't take advantage of the DS (which is saying something), and the game is far too short.  However, it is redeemed by being fun and accessible, so I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good adventure game.

Game Review: Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

I really don't play enough games on my DS. Then again, most of the library is pet simulators and Brain Age wannabes. For this reason, I was very, very excited when I found out that they were releasing a third entry in the Phoenix Wright series.

If you've played either of the first two, then you need no convincing to buy the third one. For the rest of you, let's recap:

In these games, you play as Phoenix Wright (the guy in the blue suit and red tie), a defense attorney who always seems to be taking on clients with desperate cases. You'll spend your time talking to witnesses, examining the scene of the crime, and gathering clues and evidence. Finally, you'll end up at trial, pressing those who testify and using the evidence to either expose their lies or to convince them to reveal more information. In the end, it's pretty much like a game of interactive Matlock; you always prove the innocence of your client by proving that one of his accusers is the real culprit.

If that sounds like a wacky justice system, that your client isn't innocent until you've proven someone else to be guilty, well, just roll with it. Despite the silliness evident in the system, the game is still incredibly fun and quite amusing.

The games were initially released for the Gameboy Advance, but were later adapted for the DS. In the first entry in the series, there was a special case which you unlocked which was made specifically for the DS version. It incorporated a lot of DS specific features and was the longest, most intriguing adventure to have shown up, period. Sadly, neither the second nor third games included any of these features, but the games were still fun all the same.

The third game is still loads of fun, but I have two criticisms about it. First, it's too short: In the previous games, you had to spend three days solving all of the crimes. In this entry, most of them take place in one day, two at the most. It's just gone too fast. Second, Phoenix Wright feels like a bit player in his own game. There are five adventures, and you don't even play as Phoenix for two and a half of them! How can it be his game if you only control him for half the game? Bizarre!

Don't let my criticisms stop you from playing it, however. These games are worth every penny. If you're new to the series, you should definitely find a copy of the first one, as there is no excuse for not having these games in your library. If you've already played the first two, then stop reading this and go buy the third!

Heroes Season Two Wrap-up

It's not in my nature to ruin things for others, so my thoughts will be in the comments.

The Great Porn Debate

Last Wednesday, that legend of the not-so-silver screen, Ron Jeremy, came to UMSL for a debate on pornography with XXXChurch co-founder Craig Gross. For those not familiar with those names, Ron Jeremy is a porn star with thousands of "movies" to his name, while XXXChurch is an organization devoted to porn, either helping men to break their addiction to it or helping those in the industry leave it.

I'd wanted to go, but sadly it took place entirely during the class I teach on Wednesday nights. So, just as you'll have to, I had to suffice for The Current's article about it.

I wouldn't have thought Jeremy to be the philosophical type, so I wasn't expecting much. I don't think my expectations were entirely inaccurate; while he seems to have offered up some interesting arguments, it doesn't seem like anything new or particularly compelling. But then, I'm already fairly biased, and most articles of this nature tend not to do justice to the debates.

Something interesting has been brewing in my mind regarding porn and proof that it harms the participants ever since I heard about the debate. One of the most easily quantifiable proofs of harm to participants would be from STDs. I know California requires anybody participating in pornography to use a condom and be tested for STDs regularly, and I imagine that it's fairly standard for the industry either way. Still, there's a curveball in there I've been mulling over lately.

HPV.

Not the traditional "cauliflower penis" variety, but the cervical cancer-causing strains. I'm sure I'm misinformed somewhere in here, but here's what I think I know about the disease:

• It can be transmitted without showing symptoms
• It can only be tested for after symptoms have appeared in women
• There is no test for it in men, currently

In addition, I would add that condoms are of questionable efficacy in preventing transmission, but I'm uncertain about that mark. A lot of the articles I've seen on HPV lump the wart and cancer causing strains in together, and it seems like they would behave slightly differently when it comes to transmission. Can condoms prevent transmission? Can it be spread via oral sex? I'm uncertain, but so far as I've seen, the answers seem to be "maybe not" and "yes."

Anyhow, the point of this is to point out a big danger such a disease poses to people in pornography. Ron Jeremy probably has it, but he'll never be able to know for certain. For the women he gives it to, they'll never know they have it until it's too late to do anything about it, and in the meantime they are capable of spreading it around to others. On top of that, if condoms don't effectively protect against it, then there's no safe way to be in porn and avoid it.

Which, if you've read my paper on pornography and the First Amendment, this seems like causus belli (is that right?) for making pornography illegal; speech that causes direct harm is not protected by the First Amendment.

Of course, I welcome comments on this. I more than likely have things wrong on some count here, but I'm curious where people think I actually did go wrong.

Game Review: Super Mario Galaxy

One complaint about the Wii that hasn't changed is that the number of quality games has not increased at a very fast pace. While the Wii library of games is growing, most new games are made by third parties, and those third party games tend to be poorly made, or at least poorly take advantage of the Wii's capabilities.

The upshot to this criticism is that when Nintendo makes a game for its own system, it does a bang-up job of it. With Super Mario Galaxy, they really hit the mark.

Of course, the plot really needs no introduction. Peach is kidnapped, save her from Bowser, blah blah blah. Okay, you don't play Mario games for their innovative stories. You play them because they're typically platformers of phenomenal quality.

Where do I start? I guess the control scheme deserves a mention. It's a bit difficult to get used to in the beginning; it's unusual to be controlling characters on a spherical surface, and the lack of camera control can be frustrating in rare occasions. However, after you get the feel for the controls? Man, does this game feel right. Smooth, accessible play that anybody could pick up and go with. The new features are integrated in nicely, too, like Bee Suit Mario and Boo Suit Mario. They're fun, though they do feel a little gimmicky.

Every level feels like it was crafted just right. The graphics are simply stunning, and the music evokes something while you're playing that you just don't get from most games. I really couldn't praise this game more.

There are two features I should mention, though. One is the two-player mode. Throughout the game, you can use the wii-mote to pick up "Star Bits" on the screen, and then fire them off at enemies. Since this can be a bit distracting while playing, a second player can take up a wii-mote and take over this function for the guy playing as Mario. While this seems like I nice feature, I can't help but think that it's not very fair to the second player. There just aren't enough enemies affected by the Star Bits to make it a very fruitful role, and otherwise all player two will do is wave the cursor around the screen trying to pick up Star Bits. Wee!

The other feature involves stat tracking. Each level keeps track of how many stars you've found and the highest number of coins and Star Bits you picked up in each level. You have the option of posting this information to an online message board, which other players can view, though I haven't looked at it yet myself. I wouldn't complain about this kind of feature, as it's one of the things that people seem to like about the XBox, but these things always leave me feeling so pressure. I don't play these games to unlock every last nook and cranny hidden feature, so the idea of having other people's scores as such staring me in the face does not strike me as being too appealing. Yes, you completed the game in a perfect manner. Good for you.

Those things aside, this game is bound to become a classic. If you own a Wii, there is no reason to not own it. It's fun to play, it's a joy to watch, and it's accessible to gamers of many levels without being too simple for more advanced players.

Advertising Corn

Sorry about the quiet around here. One more exam and I should have a master's degree. Awesome, huh?

Random thought from watching television: Why do crop companies advertise on television?

During The Simpsons' normal premier slot last night, I saw an advertisement by DeKalb about their corn, how superior it was, and how farmers should plant it. I can't help but wonder if this is an effective use of advertising dollars. A commercial during this primetime slot seems like it would be expensive, and how many farmers would be watching? They're not exactly a huge chunk of the population, so they're going to be a proportionally small chunk of The Simpsons' audience. At least, I assume they would be.

Then again, I have no idea what the most "efficient" way of advertising to farmers would be. Any ideas?