Tag Archives: Reviews

Myst Online: Uru Lives

Posted by BlackWidower on

Regular readers, of which there are probably one, will remember about a year ago, when I wrote about Myst Online: Uru Live. An MMO centred around the Myst Universe, which failed and was released as a single player game called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, before being resurrected as an online game by GameTap for about a year before dying again. The online version was a game I never got around to playing, but I wrote about how, as someone who only played the single player version, it didn’t surprise me it never took off and how it was a flawed idea from the beginning.

That post received a record amount of feedback, nearly 30 comments, which is incredible, considering I rarely get any comments that aren’t spam. Of course the feedback was from those who were fans of Myst, including some who were major players in the Myst fan community. So of course they told me why I was wrong, some a little more crusader-like than others. One of them posted a link on the official Myst Online forums, and you know I just realized, he said I called Myst Online a “flop”, in quotes, which I didn’t, you can check, and one of the commenters said I used the word “facts”, in quotes, which I didn’t, you can check, although the leader of the crusade did. I believe that is called a straw man fallacy. He even called my blog “contemporary game review journalism” which is kind of embarrassing, primarily because it’s not…it’s a blog, it’s one asshole’s small-time blog.

Anyway, when people made me aware of the concept of instancing in Myst Online, politely, I retracted a lot of what I said while explaining that it doesn’t make sense in-universe…or in-cavern as they call it.

Of course, just to boast my own ego, I’d like to mention that most of the feedback I got was actually positive. Saying they agreed with most of my points but I missed the point of instancing.

So since then, Cyan got their shit together and brought Myst Online back, under their own servers and free. I would have liked it if they said free to those who already bought the original Uru, but whatever, it would have been difficult to coordinate and this is more open anyways, so it’s all good.

The first few days were apparently insane, with thousands signing up for the game. THOUSANDS! I know we are all excited it’s back, but seriously, I didn’t even know there were a thousand Myst fans who still gave a shit about the franchise, much less paying close enough attention to sign up on opening day. Continue reading →

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

Posted by BlackWidower on

I like Star Trek. Like there’s a surprise there. In the past I never really got into it because it never airs on TV anymore, at least my TV because I don’t have cable. But I love the concept, a future society where humanity is spread out throughout the galaxy, and allied with many other races and societies, with advanced technology to facilitate that. It’s quite interesting, and it seems plausible. The world of Star Trek feels like it takes place in reality, something Star Wars can’t really claim.

Not that I’m saying Star Wars is bad, but when you have things like the Force, an inexplicable energy field that encompasses the galaxy and gives certain people supernatural powers, it gets a little hard to take. I mean it’s cool and all, but…does it make sense? And don’t get me started on the concept of Lightsabers! How exactly can a blade made of light stop another blade made of light when the blade made of light is controlled by the hilt made of not light, and not the other way around? It’s like being physically incapable of pointing a gun at something.

Anyway, I’m not here to bash Star Wars, I’m here to talk about Star Trek. My favourite series would have to be Voyager primarily because of the desperate situation they find themselves in. Cut off and isolated. Kinda like Battlestar Galactica, only, you know, with replicators and not being hunted by evil robots who look human. Actually, wait…there’s the Borg…and Seven of Nine allies herself with the good guys, kinda like Sharon from BSG. Wow, I just realized how uncreative Ronald D. Moore is. Continue reading →

24 Hours with the Right Bauer

Posted by BlackWidower on

We are 14 hours into the eighth season of what has to be my hands down favourate show on television: 24. Now, it’s easy to criticize 24, the predictable nature, the reused plot lines, the blatant fan service, but I personally don’t care, because all I see is some kick-ass action set against a backdrop of awesome. I remember when 24 first premiered, I thought it was stupid. “Jack Bauer has 24 hours to stop a murder, and save his family,” the promo went. I thought, “Okay, that’s the first episode, then what?” Because I was not used to the idea of real time, most TV shows tend to cover a day or a week in one episode, and I had no reason to suspect 24 was any different. In fact I remember an episode of ER when one character said they had five minutes to do something, and I started timing it…ten minutes later I’m like “what the fuck!?” It pissed me off at the time, so when my mom mentioned 24 was in real time, I was like, “Son of a bitch! When’s it on!?” And I’ve been hooked ever since.

But as I said, it’s easy to criticize, and this season is susceptible to it more than any other, specifically with the reusing of plot-lines, the only thing that has really changed is the location (see Day 7). The threat in the early episodes was the assassination of a major political figure (see Day 1), then it quickly shifted to the acquisition of nuclear materials which can easily be converted into a bomb (Day 2, 4 and 6). Then there’s the past three episodes where we see the terrorist give the president an “out” by making certain demands, (Day 3, 5 and 7) the president is betrayed by someone within his/her administration, (Day 2, 5 and 7) a mole is revealed in CTU (Day 1, 4, 5 and 7 (FBI counts)) and an attack is made on CTU (Day 2, 5 and 6). I assume this all means they are running out of ideas, or this season is meant to be a greatest hits package because as sad as it is for me to say this, this might be the last season of 24. Continue reading →

Who the Crap Would Watch the Watchmen?

Posted by BlackWidower on

In 1985, Alan Moore released what is considered by many to be one of the greatest superhero comics of all time: Watchmen. A story about five ass-kicking pricks wearing costumes (for no apparent reason), and one actual superhero in an alternate history 1985 where Nixon just won his 5th term in office after the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, and the Cold War is even more tense then it was in the actual 1985, with the suspicion that it’s only a matter of time before the bombs drop.

Now, as for myself, I’m not much of a comic book fan. The reason is, I have always found something wrong with reading stories or watching movies out of order, and considering most major comic book series are almost fifty years old, it would take me at least a decade and several hundred dollars to catch up, and that’s if I ignore eating and sleeping. Of course I could just say fuck it and start reading Spider-man comics now, but that would feel like starting War and Peace at chapter 37 (I don’t know how many chapters are in War and Peace but I assume it’s more than 37) instead of the beginning, and then when one of the characters say something like: Hey, remember that time- I’ll get pissed and rip the book in half because I don’t remember that time. It’ll feel like the book hates me for getting into the story so late. Damn me and my not being born until the ’80s.

Thankfully, Watchmen skirts around this little problem by having the entire story, including all the backstory, take place in one book. There are not fifty years worth of issues to go through, everything is in this one single tome. So after reading the book and watching the movie I know everything there is to know about the everything in the Watchmen universe, and considering I now know everything I think I can make a pretty accurate judgement of the Watchmen…I want to say franchise but considering it’s one book that’s not exactly accurate…STORY! The Watchmen story, and that judgement is…it sucks. Continue reading →

Portal 2, About Fucking Time!

Posted by BlackWidower on

Last week a new update to the classic Valve title Portal was released. For those who don’t know, Portal was a first-person puzzler, A unique genre, that revolved around the concept of Portals and was first released two-and-a-half years ago. For those of you who have never played Portal, I suggest you do so, or at the very least play the free demo available on Steam, or play the game that kinda sorta inspired Portal, Narbacular Drop. It maintains the same game play mechanics and was made by the same people but has a completely different story.

Anyway, I’m a big fan of Portal for one major reason: I wish it was real. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true, and that is why I think the best games are ones that people wish were real, that’s why I love Myst so much, because I wish I could visit other worlds that easily, and why I wish someone could come up with a really good game involving time travel, because time travel is awesome, and why I wish I had a Portal gun. Though one must use it responsibly.

There are other reasons I love Portal, but really, they come secondary. Continue reading →

Tom Clancy Doesn’t Know NetFrak

Posted by BlackWidower on

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh.

So approximately ten years ago I was on a trip to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan with my mommy at the local casino so she could gamble and I could loiter in the hotel. At the in-house gift store I spotted a copy of NetForce, a Tom Clancy novel which caught my eye because I recently saw the made-for-TV movie of the same name and I enjoyed it. So I bought the novel, but me being ten years younger and ten years stupider than I currently am, I could not get through the first chapter. It wasn’t until recently, after going up into storage and pulling out a bunch of old books that I never finished, that I finally got around to reading it. Continue reading →

SimCity: Totally Not SimCity Edition

Posted by BlackWidower on

So as I said before, I like looking for cool games at discounted prices in bins. Last week I got lucky and found SimCity Societies for under five bucks.

SimCity is a game I have always held in my heart. I never got into the original but I recently played my old copy of SimCity 2000 in DOSBox because 64-bit Windows is too good for legacy games…elitist. Anyway, I had a fun time with it. SimCity 2000 has a depth to it that as a child I was never able to grasp. Plopping down buildings was not the only game mechanic. You also had to manage your city’s budget by adjusting the taxes to promote growth while still earning enough money to support police, hospitals, fire service, transportation and education. You would receive information through mini maps and various stat windows and could adjust your actions in response.

In SimCity Societies you get none of that. All you do is plop down buildings, but if you just look at that mechanic alone it has a unique depth that can be quite intriguing. It features a resource management mechanic that comes in the form of (what I call) social engineering credits. These credits can represent one of six social attributes: productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge. Some buildings produce credits and some consume them. It forces one to ensure they create a sort of balance between buildings that require knowledge to operate and those that promote knowledge. So the city doesn’t suck the life out of it’s citizens. Continue reading →

FlashBackwards And Make Up Your Own Ending

Posted by BlackWidower on

So I finished the book FlashForward last night and a new episode of the TV series is airing tonight, so I figured it’s appropriate to make a critical review of the book. I am not one to write a review for the hell of it, I figure there needs to be a point. As Ben Croshaw once said, I need to be interested to do a review. Something that’s really good or really bad is easy to get worked up about. I’ll give you two guesses where FlashForward falls. I am also going to use a spoiler tag for the first time on this particular blog. Hope it works. But there are quite a few spoilers here so unless you don’t mind getting minor spoils from the beginning of the book I don’t suggest reading it. All other spoilers from late in the book are redacted with spoiler tags. Now, the review proper:

Time travel is like having a pet rattlesnake, yes it’s kinda cool and it seems like a good idea, but if you’re not careful there’s a good chance it could bite you in the ass. Continue reading →