Life and Leisure. Tech and Toys.

Just a day into trying out the new graphics of Metal Gear Solid retreads and my hands are already confused. I guess you’re not supposed to play all three games at the same time but I think they should have spent a little time standardizing the controls for each game. I guess I’m a stickler for this kind of thing but intuitive gameplay is not something that should be overlooked.

One of the reasons I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 4 so much is simply because the controls finally made sense with an Aim and Shoot trigger. Some claim this control scheme was influenced by the westernization of this sacred Japanese series but I think it helped the game without hurting it. Playing MGS HD Collection with the perfected control scheme would have made this HD experience much less confusing and overall more enjoyable.

Other than that, getting to play Peace Walker without a handheld is great!

So far this new toy has been great. The ease of surfing on your iPhone with a size that won’t strain your eyes. The first thing that jumps out at you when you see the new iPad is the clarity of the screen. The retina display is nothing but impressive. Even though I have an iPhone 4 with a retina display the fact that they accomplished the same quality in a large format is magnificent and a joy to use. This is my first tablet so it’s hard for me to draw any comparative conclusions. One thing I will say is that it does get tiring to hold while lying down.

Posts are less frequent because work has been keeping me away. I’ve been wanting to post about certain things and actually writing drafts that I never published and won’t publish because old news is old.

Most Anticipated in 2012:

• Mass Effect 3
• X-COM Enemy Unknown
• Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm
• Diablo III
• The New iPad
• iPhone 5
• Miami Dolphins acquiring Peyton Manning
• L.A. Clippers playoff run
• New photos with Canon 60D and 60mm Macro
• Vacation because I missed my last one

The one thing that made the last couple Ghost Recon games feel sluggish was the slow cover system. Ghost Recon Future Soldier looks to remedy that sluggish feeling with fast fluid animations. This also makes the action seem more realistic as well. This video makes the game look great but keeping in my the history behind Ghost Recon I won’t be surprised to see lackluster results.

Following the Lin-sanity of late, 2K Sports is doing their part to contribute to the hype machine. When Jeremy Lin was initially added to the Knicks roster his overall rating was a measly 56. On Feb. 15th, 2K Sports showed Lin some post Valentine’s Day love by boosting his overall stat to 69. Today’s update boosts Lin’s stats to a whopping 75 overall.

Jeremy Lin’s journey has been exciting to watch and his story is fascinating and marketable. Many people fall back on pointing the racial finger at coaches and scouts for failing to see Jeremy Lin’s abilities for what they are. I however look at his stats and college history and see his journey as one of happenstance and unfortunate situations.

In the beginning he was a very good high school player who took his team to a division championship. Many college scouts at that level look for supreme athletes which Jeremy Lin was not. If Lin looked like Lebron James did in high school he would have got a ton of scholarship offers. This has nothing to do with race, other than the fact that Lebron James is African American and we haven’t seen a comparable specimen who is Asian American. Even Lin admitted “I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I’m not going to do anything that’s extra flashy or freakishly athletic.”

Jeremy Lin sent applications and DVDs of his games to Ivy League schools. This is as stereotypical as this story is going to get. Not because of coaches or scouts being racist but because of his cultural upbringing and parental influence. Harvard’s assistant coach Bill Holden was not initially impressed by Lin but after watching more of Lin, he saw how aggressive he was driving to the lane. Harvard guaranteed him a spot on the basketball team but do not offer athletic scholarships.

Again, Lin had a solid career. He set Harvard records and won awards but still was not overly athletic and did not dominate the competition at his level. Lin went undrafted, just like every other Ivy League player since 1995. Jeremy Lin had a strong debut in the NBA summer league, teams were interested but Lin took a lower contract to sign with his home town Warriors. Looking back this move hurt his rookie season. Getting playing time with players like Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry on the roster would be tough.

In his first year in the NBA Lin did not get much playing time but when he did he was greeted with cheers from his hometown fans. He put a lot of pressure on himself and did not perform well at home. Lin was waived to make room to sign DeAndre Jordan. When the Rockets picked Lin off of waivers they already had Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragić and Jonny Flynn. All were proven starters, Lin would have no chance getting playing time. Subsequently, Lin would be waived again in the same offseason. Lin was then signed by the Knicks to fill in their roster which was already thin at guard. The rest is history, without much racial stigma at all.

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I’ve been following the XCOM Enemy Unknown feature on Game Informer since its announcement on January 5th. When a true remake of classic was announced I was just as skeptical as every other hardcore fan. Everyone knows XCOM UFO Defense caught lightning in a bottle way back in 1994, and every attempt at furthering the series was just imploded the franchise. UFO Defense is labeled as the perfect game by many strategy gamers and was easily way ahead of its time. The mix of RPG elements, turn-based tactical gaming and base management was leaps and bounds ahead of anything we’ve ever seen before. Not to mention destructible environments that are programmatically generated and an AI that was brutal on “Easy”.

Now after 10 articles and watching some great interview videos with the staff at Firaxis, I have high hopes for the project. I’m starting to realize it would be a mistake to want Firaxis to create the same game I loved for so long. A re-imagining would be better suited for what they’re trying to accomplish here. Fixaxis has admitted they are streamlining the game for consoles and inviting new players to the game. Things like delegating which pocket your squad member holds their grenade will probably be removed. I’m concerned what this means for the base management though. So far the big differences in the articles seem to be the elimination of time-units and the hint at smaller squads. Firaxis has instead decided to use a “move then attack” system that many other tactical games use, and have added class abilities to squad member types.

The elimination of time-units seems like a big deal to many people right now but I don’t think it’ll have a huge impact on how the game plays out. Whatever people say about time-units being the best part about the original XCOM I still think they were a bit broken in calculating shot types for different weapons. Reducing the number of squad members would limit how large each battle is or increase the difficulty since Firaxis has already said they are keeping perma-death (squad members die and cannot be revived). I did feel like towards the end of the original game you had too many units though.

Overall I’m excited by how the game looks so far, the character design and environments breath new life into the 3D pixel world. I’m impressed by what I’ve read so far but I’m going to try to temper how psyched I am so I’m no too disappointed with the outcome.

UPDATE: Available Now!

RAAM’s Shadow will be an additional campaign chapter, actually a prequel to the events that unfold in the first Gears of War. The DLC will include at least 3 hours of campaign, 6 additional characters to use in multiplayer and new multiplayer maps. The DLC is set to release on Dec 13th for 1200 MSP. If you’ve already paid for the Season Pass this DLC is included.

Epic also announced that they will be releasing a free “Versus Booster Map Pack” on November 24th, which includes throw-back maps Swamp and Clocktower.

Epic will be releasing the first of four DLC packs starting with the Horde Command pack. It will be available for 800 MSP starting November 1st, 2011. If you paid for the Season Pass this DLC is included. The DLC includes 3 new maps, 3 new characters (Onyx Guard, Big Rig Dizzy, Bernie), weapon skins and new purchasable fortifications for Horde mode.

The new fortifications include the ability to upgrade the Command Post to call in snipers, mortars and hammer of dawn.  The decoy can be upgraded to a bot. The sentry can be upgraded to fire flame bolts. Finally, the Silverback can be upgraded with missiles.

The DLC will be backwards compatible with non-DLC users. New maps can be played by non-DLC users if the DLC owner is the host. In Horde mode non-DLC players will not be allowed to purchase the new fortifications.

This rather short demo consists of a single 4 minute quarter where the user is locked in to playing as the Dallas Mavericks in a Championship Finals rematch against the Miami Heat.

I sort of feel a bit shorted by the length of this demo because Madden 12 offered a full length game this year. You would think in a down year for the franchise where rosters won’t be updated the franchise would try to sell the game on improved gameplay. It’s also rumored that the Classic teams will not be usable online. This is very disappointing when considering what new features will actually be added this year.

The latest developer blog highlights a lot of areas of improvement that will be hard to experiment with in just 4 minutes.

UPDATE: Netflix has decided not to rename their DVD service to Qwikster. No word on whether they will still be supporting game rentals.

Netflix sent an email to all of their subscribers today explaining and apologizing for the recent price increase of their service. The email also goes on to announce the launch of Qwikster the new brand for their DVD and Video Game rental service. For some reason I still felt pretty empty inside after reading this email…

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