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Jul282010

Limbo Review

DateWednesday, July 28, 2010 at 4:03PM

All right, back in biz, I've got some things coming down the pike, working on a new website where I'll put all my game/movie/comic reviews and make this my permanent personal area. Until then though a review, I've decided to ditch the number scores as I feel people rely to heavily on them. In any case let me know what you think of the review, and thank you all for your support.

 

LIMBO

By John Callahan

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: Playdead Studios

Platform: Xbox Live Arcade

ESRB: T

 

PROS

 

  • Incredibly haunting atmosphere
  • Challenging thought provoking puzzles
  • Amazing art design

CONS

 

  • Some puzzles are REALLY challenging
  • Haunting feeling wears off near the end of the game

 

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It’s that time of year again; it’s Microsofts “Xbox Live Summer of Arcade”. Yes the magical portion of the year where Microsoft releases incredible quality Xbox Live Arcade Games, games that rise above the rest to be put up in all best of year lists. From Summer of Arcade we’ve gotten such gems as Geometry Wars, Braid, Castle Crashers, TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Splosion Man, Shadow Complex and now Limbo, a game so good that it made me put all other interests aside.

GOOSEBUMPS

What is quite possibly the best part of Limbo is the visceral world you get set down into, when you click new game all you see is your character laying down, press any button to wake him up and the game goes from there. No backstory is given, no explanation of why you are who you are, how you got to your current place. Nothing, nadda, zip, wake up and go.

What you have is a world that is eerie and haunting, ghastly and sometimes terrifying. A black and white color scheme leaves you with no idea what even your protagonist looks like except for his creepy glowing pure white eyes. Another bit that adds to the atmosphere is the lack of a score, besides one, maybe two points in the game there is no music whatsoever, you’re accompanied only by a haunting windy noise. While Limbo never sets off to be the Resident Evil/Silent Hill “BOO” moments there were times playing this where I did yelp in surprising fear, that is a true testament to how well the sound design (or lack thereof) merges with the mystery of your surroundings. With now story Limbo is banking on your curiosity, wanting to find out more about the boy you control, wanting to find out where you are and what your goal is, not an easy task by any means but one that Playdead manages to accomplish.

MY HEAD HURTS

Now the real meat and potatoes of Limbo are the puzzles you come across throughout your adventure. The challenges this game throw at you are fantastic, they will force you to think and practice, very trial and error type gameplay here. Which brings me to another point, I hope you don’t mind seeing strong images because this game has a surprisingly dark take on them. A lot of the trial and error I mentioned will happen when your character dies and boy is it gruesome when he does. While not bloody and over the top seeing a small boy impaled on spikes or stabbed by a giant spider, crushed by boulders, decapitated by bear traps, electrocuted, or dismembered by a giant circular saw is kind of grizzly.

But that certainly doesn’t take away from the puzzle quality, ranging from “walk to the right” simple to “OMG WTF IS THIS” difficult (at one point playing I actually had to stop playing and go lay down for a while and think of strategies) so when you spend 10-15 minutes on a puzzle and then finally figure out how to beat it you will feel accomplished.

RISE ABOVE THE REST

If there was one minor complaint I could hold against Limbo it’s the progression, your environment flows naturally and fluidly this however means that as you get closer to the games finish you will lose some of the creepiness and mystery that comes earlier in the game in favor of the crazy rotating industrial type puzzle areas. However as I said this is a minor gripe, and certainly nothing to keep you from enjoyment.

Limbo isn’t a terribly long game, my total play time at the end of my first run was about six hours, going back and playing again yielded even shorter times my quickest at about an hour and a half but the world is so lovingly crafted that it’s still enjoyable to play through again and again.

Limbo is not only the best Xbox Live Arcade game to come out this year; it’s one of the best games to come out this year period. In a time where we are seeing less originality than we should from major developers it’s refreshing to see something as original as Limbo grace our presence, a masterpiece of a game that is not to be missed.

 

AuthorJohn Callahan | Comment1 Comment |
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Monday
Jun072010

iPhone 4 Reaction

DateMonday, June 7, 2010 at 2:12PM

Ok, so Mr. Steve Jobs (AKA God) just got done giving the keynote speech to the 2010 WWDC where of course the new iPhone 4 was announced. It's pretty amazing as you can imagine, here's a quick rundown of all the goodies the new Jesus phone is bringing to the table.

 

  • Brand-new design, with glass on the front and back and steel around the sides.
  • 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS -- 9.3MM.
  • New external buttons to mute, turn volume up and down, sleep/wake button.
  • Standard headphone jack and second mic for noise cancellation.
  • New display capable of 326 ppi, which equates to, as Jobs puts it, "really sharp text."
  • Features the Apple A4 chip, the same powerful chip powering the iPad.
  • Improved battery life, getting users 40% more talk time (up to seven hours), six hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video, 40 hours of music, 300 hours of standby.
  • Includes a gyroscope, allowing for pitch roll and yaw movement, and works with the accelerometer to provide a six degrees of complete movement for the device.
  • Five-megapixel camera with back-lit sensor, 5x digital zoom, LED flash.
  • High-definition video capture -- it's capable of capturing 720p video at 30 frames-per-second.
  • iMovie. Looks like a tiny version of iMovie on Mac, including transitions, layering music from your iPad library, incorporate other movies and videos on the iPhone. Available for $4.99.
  • iPhone OS 4 -- now renamed iOS 4 -- is included on the phone, with the previously announced multi-tasking, threaded e-mail conversations, folders.
  • Bing is now an option for search, though Google will remain the default.
  • iBooks comes to iPhone and you can sync books across iDevices for free.
  • FaceTime, aka iChat for iPhone, is included -- but it requries Wi-Fi.

 

So as you can see it's pretty spectacular. Now here's where crazy me comes in I'm a huge Apple fan boy, HUGE I'm currently typing this on my MacBook Pro, while I have an episode of Breaking Bad playing on my iPad right next to me and until recently I would've had my iPhone 3GS right next to me here waiting for the off call.

However that's not the case because about a month ago I sold my 3GS for a nice sum of $445 I then used that money to buy myself a brand new Droid Incredible, but more to the point I also used that money to break my contract with AT&T and start one up with Verizon. And that's what I really want to focus on, the Incredible has sort of lessened the awesome factor of the iPhone 4 for me. For a long time I had no idea what a smart phone was I just had a regular free Virgin Mobile clam phone and was content with that. Then I got the iPhone 3G, that showed me that there was a whole new world out there to experience the 3GS even more so.

The old saying "Ignorance is Bliss" applied to me, yes I did have the sleekest, sexiest, all around best phone ever. And since I felt that way I was willing to take a few hits, I never saw the need for folders, or for multi-tasking, or for video chat, or any of the stuff that is NOW on the iPhone. People were always telling me how my phone couldn't do this or that but I just liked it so much I ignored them, and more to the point of this post I put up with the god awful AT&T service just like a bunch of people still do.

Now I'm older and wiser, I've had my Incredible for about a month now, and all the stuff the new iPhone can do, I'm already able to and more. Therefore had I still had my 3GS and seen all this I'd have been blown away with excitement, as it is I'm now just meh. All that stuff is definitely freaking sweet but I already have it, and the most important bit is I have it all on a service that actually works. 

I constantly was dropping calls, couldn't connect, lost service etc etc etc when I had AT&T as my provider but I put up with it cause there was nothing as good as the iPhone, now there is the Droid Incredible the HTC EVO 4G, all these things are just as nice as the iPhone making the announcement today less impactful. Then just a few moments before I started typing this my friend Allan reminded me that the new iPhone will have Netflix streaming as well as the video chat. He then also reminded me that it happens as the same time AT&T axe their unlimited data plan, meaning that if I were to say want to watch a movie from Netflix I'd have to closely moniter my usage less I risk using the internet after that and going over and getting hit with a huge overage fee.

I was soooooooooooo hoping for the announcement that the new iPhone would head to Verizon or even T-Mobile or Sprint, sadly that never happened so until it does, yes I'm jealous, yes it looks like it will be the most amazing phone ever... again, yes I would contemplate murder to get it, and yes if you have AT&T go right ahead and get it you won't be sorry, but am I gonna rush out day one like I did before to get one? No, I know better now as soon as I get the option to get a Verizon iPhone 4 I'll buy 8 of them to apologize to Steve.

 

AuthorJohn Callahan | CommentPost a Comment |
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Tuesday
Dec222009

New Sections!

DateTuesday, December 22, 2009 at 7:24AM

Ok, so here is something new, I know some of my readers are just into certain things, some people care about movies, some about games, comics, etc, and some people care about them all (which I hope is most of you). So now no matter what your preference is (again... really hope you care about all these great mediums) there are now tabs up at the top of the page linking to each certain section.

So if you are one of those people who just wants to hear me talk about movies click on the movie tab and all my future posts involving movies and such will be right there, same goes for games and comics. So just thought I would post that here (where the site automatically takes you) as some people have been a little confused and thought I still wasn't writing anything new.

Thanks again for reading and caring about what I have to say. You guys ROCK!!!

AuthorJohn Callahan | Comment1 Comment |
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Thursday
Dec032009

Assassin's Creed II Review

DateThursday, December 3, 2009 at 7:11PM

Assassin's Creed II Review

By John Callahan: 12-3-09

Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Windows

ESRB: M

PROS

  • Engrossing Story
  • Sublime Soundtrack
  • Greatly Improved Combat
  • Improves on the first Game in Every Way

CONS

  • Ezio Sometimes Thinks He's Spiderman

___________________________________________________________________________________

Assassins, they come in all shapes and sizes. Ninja’s are assassins, so are guys in business suits, now thanks to Assassin’s Creed II I also know that they like to hang out with Leonardo DaVinci and enjoy Parkour. Oh one last bit, they are badasses, I feel that’s what AC2 is trying to do, make you feel like as much of a badass as you possibly can, and they succeed!

Good Day Mr. Miles 

Assassin’s Creed II starts off exactly where the first game ended with you looking at strange writing on your Abstergo cell wall (also if you didn’t play the first AC shame on you), I’ll do my best to not give away any story but sufficed to say you escape Abstergo and end up in some other way once again taking part in a sort of memorical family reunion. The key difference is that this time instead of controlling the agile Middle Eastern assassin Altair you’re in control of pretty boy Ezio and instead of your playground being the Holy Land it’s now Renaissance Italy.

An Assassin’s Gotta Do What an Assassin’s Gotta Do

The first Assassin’s Creed had a very methodical way of handling the actual assassinations, you would gather information, scout out the surrounding area via vantage points, and save about I believe my final count was 1,342,537 civilians which would cause them to be thankful and help you escape later on. Now while I actually enjoyed this style I can see how some people found it repetitive, well that system has been scrapped in order for a more GTA style of mission structure. You’ll go around and help people with what they need whether it be delivering packages or beating the crap out of some girls cheating husband, this gives you information about your target through natural conversation. Basically the same scouting/helping/defending aspects are there but it all flows much better.

Also the major assassinations are designed in a way where some will allow you to be a sneaky SOB and others will have you just straight up making your kill as public as possible which is a nice mix up to have every now and then.

I pointed out earlier that you can just straight up make a public execution of your target, while you can do this I suggest you brush up on the new combat mechanics because otherwise your enemies will use you to clean up the blood of their newly lost boss. The first game was basically a lesson in timing so you could parry every enemy attack and counter for a sleek kill; this unfortunately led to many times where I would be surrounded by about 14 guards just standing waiting for one of them to make a move so I could counter. Combat this time around is varied and forces you to adapt, for instance some enemies will have hammers and maces which you can’t block, others will have pikes and spears which are parry proof. This forces you to plan out your attacks and pay attention at all times so you can live to run another day.

Like Trying to Find a Feather in Venice… wait wha?

Assassin’s Creed 1 had me running around the game world for HOURS looking for every single flag to be found in the game (did it by the way making AC one of only two games I have a 1000/1000 gamerscore on) AC2 has you looking for 100 feathers. The difference is that these feathers mean more than 50 gamer points as they make sense in the context of the story as well as actually give you rewards for finding them.

That brings up probably my favorite part of this epic masterpiece which is the world itself, now call me a sucker for this kind of stuff as I said the same thing about GTAIV and infamous but I love it when game worlds feel like an actual world and Italy here is as close as I’ve seen. When you’re up above the city you’ll see all the people going about their way shopping conversing with each other and just living life. Also the highly impressive visuals show off what I now keep in my mind as what Italy looked like in the 15th century. The overworld has five regions, Venice being HUGE, which you can get to and from quickly using travel stations.

Take That Gymnasts!

Here is where the one flaw I found with this game is, it’s actually weird because this is also one of its highest points and that is Ezio’s movements and agility. I mentioned earlier how this game wants to make you feel like a badass and when it succeeds it does so with such finesse that it will leave you stunned. Example I just assassinated a guy fought off a bunch of guards and started running like hell, I hit a bunch of stacked crates used them to launch myself to a windowsill which I then used to climb to the top of the roof where I hid in a little shanty a guard came and searched it so I stabbed him hid his body and took off again losing my pursuers. Awesome! Another time, same situation except this time I tried to run past the crates only to have Ezio latch on to the top of a door and hang two feet off the ground while I got surrounded and slaughtered. Other times the camera will just be put in an awkward position making for some difficult escapes. Nothing severe enough to break a game but it did kill that ever important flow at points.

Do Not Miss This One

That one bit I mentioned above is truly the only gripe I can give this game, everything here spells good, the living breathing world with real life people, the smooth combat system, the almost always smooth free running mechanic and just overall feeling of awesome make this one of the MUST HAVE games of 2009. Cannot recommend it enough, so go on, go forth and kill.

 

AuthorJohn Callahan | CommentPost a Comment |
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Thursday
Aug132009

The Loss of a Legend

DateThursday, August 13, 2009 at 11:58AM

I was going to do a list of the greatest singers of all time, but today the legendary Les Paul died. Les was quite possibly my favorite guitarst ever. So instead today I am going to do a top 5 greatest Les Paul songs, and there are a lot that could be considered the greatest.

So, lets go.

5. How High the Moon (Mary Ford) - Although Les and his wife Mary weren't the first to originally record "How High the Moon" they did make the most well known and easily best version of it. Les's smooth guitar sound eminates well and complements Mary's beautiful vocal stylings so well in this song that it will bring tears to your eyes.

4. Blue Skies - All of these songs show off how lightning quick and skilled Les was with the ol' solid body electric but "Blue Skies showcases it well as Les sends his fingers up and down the frets making beautiful sliding solos.

3. Dream Dust - Les's hit "Dream Dust" is one of those songs that is haunting but in a good way, Les never sang so when he did his solo stuff he relied on his guitar to get what he needed to be said across and this is no truer then in this masterpiece of a song.

2. It's Been a Long Long Time (Bing Crosby) - As I said in the disscussion for "Dream Dust" Les was often a solo man who had no singer with him, but when he did it was magical and the best example of this is the song "It's Been a Long Long Time" which he recorded with the also legendary Bing Crosby. These two artists complement each other so well that I find it hard to believe they didn't record more together. Oh, and guitar the guitar is superb.

1. Dark Eyes - I have gone on record saying that this is my favorite Les Paul song of all time. I even went so far as to say that this song had the third greatest guitar solo ever, only being beaten by Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" and Lynyrd Skynyrds "Freebird". And I tell no lies the solo in this is amazing, the song itself starts out with heavy piano with Les's quick fingers sliding down the guitar neck which leads into quick trills and slides. Then at a certain point about halfway through the song he starts going even faster, how fast? Fast enough to make that little bitch Herman Li cry. Truly a GREAT song from my favorite guitarist ever.

 

And that's all I've got, Les Paul was truly a legend, come on the man created the iconic LOG guitar, and then followed it up with the first solidbody electric guitar, then proceeded to master said guitar. So much influence came from Les that guitarists like Joe Satriani and Zakk Wylde (who refers to Les as "Dad") to play the instrument they are now considered masters of.

Even at the age of 94 you could still play better then most today.

Les Paul you will be sorely missed, your in a better place now, pick the guitar strings for the angels now.

 

RIP.

AuthorJohn Callahan | CommentPost a Comment |
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