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Archives For February 2011

Column – Don’t be quick to panic, blame others

February 25, 2011 — Leave a comment

Published in The Daily Toreador.

We’ve been pretty busy at The Daily Toreador trying to cover the story of Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, the Lubbock resident and former Tech student who has been charged with plans to create and use an improvised explosive device (IED).

As some people have been saying on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, it’s crazy to think the Hub City had its own terrorist.

Obviously, at this stage in the investigation, there’s a lot we don’t know, and there’s probably more that we’ll never know at all. But there’s one thing that, sadly, seems to need saying every time an incident like this crops up.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that, just because Aldawsari was Islamic, all Muslims are evil. Just because he was of Saudi Arabian descent does not mean all Middle Eastern people are out to bomb you.

After all, Aladdin was Arabic, and he kicked a lot of ass for the good guys.

To be fair, I haven’t personally seen a lot of hate from Tech students, at least not yet. I’m hoping that’s a good sign.

But that hasn’t been the case everywhere else. Occasional reader comments from sites such as CNN.com and even LubbockOnline.com betray an intense fear of those who don’t share their religion, nationality or skin color.

But that’s really no surprise, of course. Such people show up all over the place. What’s more surprising is when people who should know better jump onto that bandwagon.

MSN.com’s main headline for this story, at the time of this writing, states, “After 9/11, U.S. gave more visas to Saudi students.”

And? What’s your point, MSN? If there are more Saudi students here on visas (the story says more than 10,000 were granted in 2008) than before, yet we only have this one case of terrorism, isn’t that a pretty low student-to-murderer ratio?

As it stands now, it appears that Aldawsari was a lone wolf, with no ties to organizations like al-Qaida. Based on reports we have on his blog activity, he wanted to start his own organization and be its leader.

Truth be told, young, crazy people of all religions (atheism included) and ethnicities could have fallen into the same delusions.

Aldawsari may have been Middle Eastern. He may have been a Muslim. He may have wanted to do some terrible things in the name of Allah. But we could just as easily be here talking about a group of Christians who decided to bomb an abortion clinic on Christmas day as a birthday gift to Jesus.

Extremism is not indicative of what a religion believes or teaches. Things are taken out of context far too easily, even by those who mean well.

We don’t need to waste our time blaming the Koran or George W. Bush or President Obama. We should just be thankful that, this time, disaster was avoided and lives were saved. That’s the main thing that matters right now.

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Review – Magicka

February 23, 2011 — 1 Comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

I tend to keep a pretty close eye on the video game industry, and I’m usually pretty good at spotting what some of the biggest and best games of the year will be long before they come out. But sometimes a game comes out of nowhere and really surprises me.

“Magicka” is one of those games, and it came from some students in Sweden.

As a $10 PC game that is currently download-only in the U.S., “Magicka” sort of snuck onto the marketplace and has started developing quite a cult following. It’s a one- to four-player fantasy adventure that’s reminiscent of the old “Gauntlet” games in some ways, in part because you play from an isometric view and kill a ton of monsters.

You can pick up some new weapons, similar to “Diablo,” but you don’t spend any time leveling up or making your character stronger, really. In fact, you start out with most of the abilities right off the bat. The catch is you have to teach yourself how to use them.

As the name implies, “Magicka” is all about casting spells. You do this by combining eight different elements, each mapped to a different key on your keyboard, in whatever way you see fit. You can mix up to five elements at a time, repeating some if you want.

This is where most of the fun in the game comes from. I personally spent well over an hour in the first level of the game just combiningelements to see their results.

Some combinations don’t require any finesse at all. If you combine five lightning elements, you get (surprise) a lot of lightning.

Some are fairly obvious combinations. For example, if you only cast a shield element, you get a rather basic shield in front of you. But if you combine the shield with earth, you’ll form a barrier of large rocks that will come between you and any enemies that may wish you harm.

And some are a little out there but ridiculously cool to use. With a little arcane magic, two parts steam and two parts lightning (conjured up by quickly hitting S-Q-F-Q-F-A-A on your keyboard), you’ll get a lightning beam that absolutely destroys anything in its path.

What’s amazing here is just how many different ways the elements interact with each other and with you as the player. Say you performed an advanced spell in order to make it rain. Unless you dry yourself off with some fire or shield yourself another way, you don’t want to cast a lightning spell while soaking wet. The resulting burnt wizard isn’t very pretty, but at the same time, failed experimentation with spells can still be wildly entertaining.

The other best aspect of the game is probably the humor. The story in “Magicka” plays out like a fantasy parody more than anything serious, and it’s full of great jokes and fantastic pop culture references that made me laugh out loud more than once.

But the game definitely isn’t without problems, which is unfortunate.

The issue that almost stopped me from playing altogether is a lack of optimization. The game doesn’t look like anything special (it certainly won’t rival “Crysis” on your computer or anything), yet its system requirements are surprisingly high. The developers outright advise against attempting to play the game on a laptop (as I did), in fact, because the integrated video cards on most laptops just won’t run the game.

I personally got the game running by turning all the settings down and not playing in full screen. Still, the framerate gets choppy at times. I would strongly advise trying the demo to make sure your computer can handle the experience.

There are also some gameplay issues. One thing that will drive a lot of people crazy is the way saved games work. As it stands now, you can only save your game at the end of each of the game’s twelve chapters, some of which can be quite long.

Even then, checkpoints are sometimes few and far between, meaning that if you die for any reason (such as a spell gone very, very wrong), you might find yourself set back quite a bit. It doesn’t help that there are many situations in which you may feel you were killed in a cheap manner.

You also can’t replay chapters you’ve completed without starting the game over entirely, which can be a big problem when trying to go back to get an item or just to replay a fun section of the game.

Online multiplayer has also been an issue for most people, making playing with others difficult. This is a big problem considering that “Magicka” is best enjoyed with friends. You can play locally if you have access to some good gamepads (a wired Xbox 360 controller seems to work best), but not everybody is so well equipped.

On the upside, the developers at Arrowhead Game Studios and their publisher, Paradox Interactive, have been extremely supportive of the game and its community since its release. They’ve already patched the game many times, fixing a ton of bugs that more or less broke the game for a lot of users. They continue to address concerns players have, and are also working on new content — both free and to be charged for — for download later.

Especially if my above concerns are addressed in the near future, “Magicka” is an extremely easy game to recommend at its mere $10 price tag, even though the game itself isn’t extremely long. The only caveat is that you should make sure your computer will run it smoothly, and you should really make sure you have a friend or three to share the experience with.

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Column – Teacher’s comments against students not without provocation

February 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

Last week, the Associated Press did a story on Natalie Munroe, a high school English teacher from Philadelphia who has been suspended without pay for complaining about her students on her personal blog.

Well, OK, maybe “complaining” is putting it lightly. While the original blog is gone, many of the entries have been cached online (what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet). In some of the entries, she calls certain, anonymous students things like “rat-like.” On her student evaluations, she says she wishes she could write things such as, “I hear the trash company is hiring.”

Harsh? A little. Immature things for an adult in a position of authority to say? Absolutely.

But at the same time, I feel like she’s saying things that need to be said.

In one oft-quoted entry, Munroe wrote, “My students are out of control. They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.”

Forget about her high school students. That description fits a lot of students I’ve seen here at Texas Tech.

That, in my opinion, is a big problem.

It’s no secret that the American education system is struggling, and a lot of blame is being thrown around as to the cause. Obviously there’s no one explanation. The education budget sucks, classrooms are too crowded, et cetera et cetera. But it’s hard to help children learn when they’re so unwilling.

Munroe has a new blog online, at NatalieMunroe.com no less, where she writes, “the fact remains that every year, more and more students are coming in less willing to work, to think, to cooperate.”

As I said, this is something I’ve seen on our own college campus, where one would like to assume students would be more willing to learn.

Obviously that isn’t the case. Students still complain about having “too much work” (when in actuality they are working very little) or having tests that are too hard. Often they complain about having to go to class at all.

Who or what is at fault for this obnoxiously lazy, entitled attitude? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a parenting issue (and I’m not a parent, so I wouldn’t feel qualified to talk about that anyway), an issue with our society in general or what.

Maybe the method of learning is to blame. Maybe our culture has changed so much that we need to go back to square one in order to find out how best to teach the students of tomorrow.

In any case, I’m not sure Munroe deserves much more than a slap on the wrist. As she and her lawyer are quick to tell people, the original blog was written anonymously (though, to be fair, a picture of her was allegedly on it). She never mentioned what school she worked for or what students she was blowing off steam about. She was found out anyway, of course, but I assume it wasn’t a simple matter.

Honestly, she was doing what millions of other people worldwide, both young and old, are doing on the Internet. Just look at fmylife.com, NotAlwaysRight.com or sites like them and you’ll find hundreds of stories from people complaining about other people. Sometimes it’s students complaining about teachers. Sometimes it’s employees complaining about bosses or customers. Sometimes it’s customers complaining about employees.

It’s human nature to vent. It’s natural to come home from school or work and rant about how horrible your day was to anybody that will listen. Trust me, my fiancée does it all the time.

Do we need to be careful about ranting in a public space, such as the Internet? Absolutely. That should go without saying, and Munroe should have been more careful than she was. But I feel as if she was just exercising her First Amendment right to free speech in this case.

Furthermore, I worry the school board Munroe works for will try to bury her as part of an effort to hide a greater problem. Munroe’s comments, while not as mature as they could have been, highlight a very big problem in our schools today. I hope the people in charge don’t merely shoot the messenger.

But there’s one lesson everybody should learn from Munroe: Be very careful what you say online.

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Review – The Blocks Cometh

February 18, 2011 — 1 Comment

Grabbing screenshots for The Blocks Cometh was not an easy task.

The iPhone game from HalfBot, a port of their popular flash game, moves fast. Not as fast as the original, mind, but still at a pace where I didn’t want to take my fingers off the screen in order to take a quick screen grab by hitting the top and home buttons on my iPhone. In fact, doing so killed me on at least one occasion.

I sacrificed a high score for you, Internet. FOR YOU.

The concept of the game is simple enough. Blocks of varying shapes and size are falling from the sky, and you want to climb as high as you can on the resulting tower of junk, making sure never to be underneath a block when it falls. In that way, it’s like a metaphor for life. Are we not all trying to ascend to the top of the blockades that get in our way? Are we not all threatened to be crushed under their weight?

Anyway, you can run and jump in order to accomplish this goal, as you’d expect. You can usually double jump as well, and can slide on the side of blocks in a sort of wall grind, Mega Man X or Super Meat Boy style. You also have the option of destroying any blocks that get in your way, but true ninjas don’t need such petty abilities and will climb higher and higher without the need to remove any obstacles.

The only real problem with the iPhone port of The Blocks Cometh is in the controls, and this is sort of a tricky situation. All told, the controls are probably as good as they could be on the iOS. They function just fine, and the buttons are properly placed so you neither cover the screen with your hands nor accidentally hit buttons you didn’t mean to push. But if you’re gunning for the highest of scores, you’ll find yourself really wanting a keyboard or gamepad. It’s just too easy to lose your fingers’ place on the iDevice touch screen, and you might find yourself cursing as you tried to jump out of the way of a block, only to realize that you weren’t hitting the right arrow like you thought you were.

Again, this is really a fault of the hardware, not the software, and HalfBot seems to acknowledge the limitations of iDevices. As I mentioned previously, the iPhone version of the game seems to start off slower than the Flash game, and the playing space is smaller. So good on them for at least doing what they could to properly adapt the experience to the mobile device.

So why would you pay $0.99 for this iPhone version when you can play it free on your browser? A few reasons. One is, of course, portability. The Blocks Cometh is a really great game to pick up and play for just a few minutes, similar to something like Canabalt in that regard. This makes it a great choice for an iPhone app. HalfBot also added some content for paying customers, namely in unlockable characters that all play differently and change the experience just enough to make them worthwhile. There’s also GameCenter and OpenFeint support for leaderboards and achievements, which is much appreciated.

There’s another reason to buy it, too. And that’s the fact that the game was originally stolen from them outright. Some thieving scoundrels stole their gameplay, art assets (except one, stolen from another iOS game, League of Evil) and even the name, then managed to make money off selling it without Apple having any clue what was going on. I tend to be against theft as a rule, so feeling bad for the damages HalfBot may suffer from the counterfeit product (a lot of people probably won’t buy the app again, since they already got the fake), I decided to throw them a dollar.

Thankfully, I think the game is good enough to justify that small price. It’s a solid iOS experience that should appeal to gamers who want a bit of a challenge in their mobile games.

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Review – You Don’t Know Jack (2011)

February 14, 2011 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

When the “You Don’t Know Jack” series of trivia games was in its prime over a decade ago, my mother didn’t allow me to play it. The often raunchy, sometimes borderline offensive pop culture jokes weren’t deemed fit for my young ears.

Now, the series is making a comeback with a new game for just about every gaming platform out there, and I can see what the fuss was about.

“You Don’t Know Jack” plays like a television game show, to the extent that it features a host and even sponsors for each individual “episode” of gameplay. You and up to three friends (well, one friend if you’re playing on the PC) gather around your TV and try to answer questions faster than one another in order to win more money.

The game features 73 episodes to play through, with each episode consisting of 10 questions that are the same every time you play. This means replaying episodes is pretty pointless, as you’ll know exactly what to expect every time.

On the other hand, this eliminates a common problem you get from card-based trivia games a lot of people play at parties. With those, when shuffling the deck of questions before every game, there’s always the chance that you’re going to keep drawing cards you saw in the last games you played, which can really dampen the experience. By keeping questions within set episodes, “You Don’t Know Jack” can guarantee that an entire gameplay session will be a new experience for those who haven’t played it before.

And the humor is really where “You Don’t Know Jack” separates itself from other trivia games. This comes across even in the simple act of asking questions, which the game usually does in a very roundabout way.

For example, while a bland and boring trivia game might ask, “What is the second stage of the seven stages of grief?” “You Don’t Know Jack” instead asks, “If ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ released a new product based on the second stage of grief, what would the product be called?”

And the host doesn’t tend to pull punches. He’ll insult Lady Gaga, badmouth “Jersey Shore” and definitely insult you, the contestant, whenever possible.

Usually, questions are of the type where you are given a set of possible answers and you want to select the right one as quickly as possible. But the game is good about mixing things up from time to time, such as with its “Dis or Dat” questions.

Every episode also has a “sponsored” “Wrong Answer of the Game,” which is a very specific wrong answer to a question that, if you guess it, will give you tons of extra cash, as well as a silly prize.

The only problem with all the humor in the game is that it gives the game a fairly limited shelf life. The pop culture references are great now, but a number of them could easily be outdated or tired in a year or even less.

One upside and potential solution to this is that the developer seems committed to supporting the game with downloadable content. There is already a $5 pack available for download that adds 10 more episodes to the game, and more are on the way. This sounds like a much better solution than releasing a new version of the game every few months, as happened last time the series was a really big deal.

For 73 episodes that take between 10 and 15 minutes to play through, there’s quite a bit of content packed onto this disc. On top of that, it’s appropriately priced at $30, which feels like the right choice and offers a really good value.

Obviously, you’re going to get the most out of the game if you can play it with several friends in the same room. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions offer online play, which is great, but it’s not as fun as playing in a party setting or with family.

If you want a good, funny trivia game and don’t mind if it’s outdated next year, I highly recommend “You Don’t Know Jack.”

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360 with a copy of the game provided to The Daily Toreador by THQ.

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Review – Dead Space 2

February 3, 2011 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

In some ways, the most shocking thing about the original “Dead Space” was just how good it was.

Visceral Games took a little bit of “Resident Evil 4” and mixed it with a little bit of “Bioshock” and somehow created a game that was greater than the sum of its parts. It was as genuinely frightening in places as the greatest survival horror games, yet had the gameplay of a great action title.

So now, two years later, even if I say that “Dead Space 2” is just more “Dead Space,” that should be enough to make you say, “OK, awesome.”

But it’s not just more “Dead Space.” It’s better in a lot of subtle ways, improving on the tried-and-true formula in ways that many sequels manage to screw up.

The game once again places you in the shoes of Isaac Clarke, the run-of-the-mill space engineer turned space-zombie-dismembering protagonist. But while Isaac was silent and practically faceless in the first game, he is given new life in this sequel. You see a lot more of him without a mask on, and he carries out several conversations with other characters in the story. It’s a simple change that really helps push the narrative forward, because the plot is able to give you a lot more reason to care about the main character.

But I actually don’t want to say too much about the plot, not because it has some “Sixth Sense”-esque twist that shouldn’t be spoiled, but because it’s a legitimately fun ride that’s more fun if you’re at least somewhat in the dark. Also, if you never played the first “Dead Space,” it still holds up really well, and you might want to consider experiencing that story before diving into this one.

The game still involves you running around in space avoiding alien monstrosities known as necromorphs – reanimated human corpses that have been mutated by alien infestation. But unlike most action games (especially those involving zombies), shooting necromorphs in the head is actually a bad idea. The key to killing your enemies is something the game’s designers call “strategic dismemberment.” I.E., you want to shoot off their limbs. I typically go for the legs first, provided the monster has legs in the first place.

Yes, it can get kind of gross.

While a lot of people probably won’t find “Dead Space 2” “scary,” per se, most would probably agree that it gets pretty disturbing in places, though not in a way that makes it feel like a bad slasher movie. You will deal with mutated babies, some gruesome death animations and quite a bit of blood, but most of the disturbance really comes from the game’s fantastic atmosphere. The settings, visuals, lighting and sound tend to combine wonderfully into a very moody experience.

One area “Dead Space 2” really improves on compared to its predecessor is the pacing and diversity. The original game took place entirely on the U.S.G. Ishimura, a mining ship that, while effective, wasn’t very varied. This time around you spend your time on the massive space station known as the Sprawl, which features some really effective settings such as a church, daycare center and mall. You even spend some time floating around without gravity in pretty wide-open spaces outside, which can be a really nice change from the close-quarters corridors.

There’s also multiplayer in the game, which is OK. It plays fine, and some people will no doubt find it enjoyable, but it’s nothing to write home about and really doesn’t compare to the outstanding single-player experience. Still, it’s there if you want it.

At around eight to 10 hours, “Dead Space 2” is neither the longest nor shortest of game experiences. One of the best things I can say about it, though, is that it immediately made me want to start playing it a second time after the credits had rolled, which is something I rarely do. The game thankfully has a “New Game Plus” option to let you take all of your money, weapons and upgrades into a new game, and I intend to do so on a harder difficulty setting as soon as I get the chance.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you like a little horror in your games and want a fantastic sci-fi zombie adventure, you absolutely need to give “Dead Space 2” a look. It’s kicking off the year 2011 on an extremely high note, and I’m already anxious for the next installment.

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Review – Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

February 3, 2011 — Leave a comment

Originally published in The Daily Toreador.

When the original “Golden Sun” games were released on the GameBoy Advance, they helped solidify the system as a great machine for RPGs. They were graphically impressive, had a lot of charm and did some interesting things with their puzzles and characters.

It took awhile, but the series is finally back with “Golden Sun: Dark Dawn” on the Nintendo DS. The question is, is it as golden as its predecessors, or does it fall short of expectations?

For the most part, “Dark Dawn” is just as solid as fans wanted it to be. The gameplay, while occasionally on the easy side, retains the same great balance of depth and approachability that the first two games had. At its core, battles play out like typical, old-school RPGs. The player selects actions and attacks for his cast of characters, and then those characters and the enemies take turns duking it out.

Where “Golden Sun” changes things up most is with Djinn — small, legendary creatures that give their user power over their specific element of magic, be it Venus (Earth), Mars (Fire), Jupiter (Air) or Mercury (Water). Depending on what Djinn you have equipped to each character, you might get new and exciting spells to take into battle, and your characters’ stats may be affected (both positively and negatively). Managing Djinn is a key component of battle strategy.

But just as exciting is that magical abilities, from Djinn or otherwise, aren’t limited to battle. As in the previous games, the environment is full of little puzzles that can only be solved by creative use of magic. Sometimes this can be a simple task, like using ice magic to freeze a puddle of water, or using fire magic to burn a vine that’s in your way. But sometimes the puzzles require a bit more brainpower, and solving them can lead to some nice rewards.

Unfortunately, the area of “Dark Dawn” that isn’t as exciting is the story. While it’s mostly fine, it probably won’t manage to grab hold of you as easily as the original games did. Maybe the excitement of learning about Djinn and psynergy (magic) is merely gone after that first experience, but the characters and settings just don’t seem as interesting this time around.

The game takes place 30 years after the first two games, and you play as the children of the original “Golden Sun” heroes. In a lot of ways, the children are carbon copies of their parents, wielding very similar abilities and possessing very similar personalities. This itself isn’t much of a problem, except that much of the game’s story boils down to, “That thing that threatened the world in the first games is threatening the world again,” and that’s pretty disappointing. It’s not the least original plot out there, and in fact tends to serve its purpose just fine, but it still feels a lot like familiar ground.

On the upside, they can take the plot in more interesting directions with the next installment, which ends up being hinted at as this one ends.

But even though the story won’t blow you away, the rest of the game is really solid. It plays great and looks really good. The DS isn’t lacking in good RPGs, but this one still manages to stand tall among the competition. It’s worth checking out if you want a good fantasy adventure in your pocket.

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Review – Plants vs. Zombies (DS)

February 1, 2011 — Leave a comment

The fine folks at GamesRadar.com asked me to review Plants vs. Zombies for the Nintendo DS. Apparently it was posted last week, but it didn’t ever make the front page, so I didn’t see it until now. Oh well. Here it is anyway. You should check it out whether you’re familiar with Plants vs. Zombies or not.

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