Tag Archives: RANDOM REVIEW

CREATIVE, ORIGINAL-GAMER.COM, TECH, Videogames, WORDS

Why So Serious? WHY NOT?

I’ve been writing opinion pieces, game reviews and doing voice-overs for Original-Gamer.com (and occasionally here) for a few months now, and for what its worth, I always try to play it straight.  Well, except the voice-over stuff, unless its something I wrote myself, I don’t have much of a choice there. -shrug-

I play it straight because I don’t believe in pandering to the least common denominator.  If gaming is an artform that is just now ‘growing up,’ as some claim, then the people that report on it are probably just a few steps behind.  As I said at the end of my second article, The Numbers Game: “if we want others to take games seriously, we must take them seriously ourselves.”

But why aren’t videogames taken seriously?  Is it because of their relative youth compared to other artforms such as television and film, or is it because of the immaturity of those that cover it?  Granted, this is the internet, but there are very few places where videogames are covered without a wink and a snarky attitude. What the gaming press needs is the equivalent of The Wall Street Journal or Variety, but what we’re getting is Mad Magazine.

Now, I openly admit, I don’t practice what I preach: I crack jokes in my reviews and perhaps I shouldn’t ‘write myself’ into them.  The latter, I do because think it is important for the reader to get a sense of where I am coming from.  For better or worse, my score will be influenced by whether the game was something I was REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to or was just something that got tossed into my lap.  I think it also helps the reader if they are made aware of my biases for or against the game coming in.

Am I impartial? Admittedly not, but let’s be honest, nobody truly is.

In any event, while I am pointing out the problem, I don’t really have a solution.  The best that I can hope for is that the ‘serious guys’ get popular enough to, well, be taken seriously.  Now, does everybody have to take gaming seriously? Not really, there will always be a place for the snarks and clowns, and if worse comes to worse I can always go back to joking about how much I suck at fighting games.

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RANDOM REVIEW, SAN JAPAN, Video

RANDOM REVIEW: Gold Digger: The Movie

INTRODUCTION

Fred Perry’s Gold Digger comic book is one of the oldest examples of what some  call “Amerimanga,” where an American comic artist adopts the style and conventions used in Japanese comics, or “manga” as they are known in Japan.

It is also one of those comics that I repeatedly saw on the shelf of the comic shop but just wasn’t intrigued enough to actually buy.  At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  Recently my friend Chris Holm (who is apparently creator Fred Perry’s biggest fan/stalker) told me that Gold Digger was Tomb Raider before Tomb Raider came along.  After sheepishly admitting to Mr. Perry that I had never read his work at the South Texas Comic-Con, I bought a copy of “Gold Digger Max” to see what it was all about.

I like what I have seen of Gold Digger so far, Fred Perry has created a fascinating world that is filled with exotic locales and lots of interesting characters and adventure.  He does a good job of tightrope-walking between world-ending seriousness and comedy.  It is a shame that it took me so long to discover it.  Comparing it to Tomb Raider is something of a disservice because it is so much better than Tomb Raider.

Fast-forward to the third day of San Japan :3 and as dealers are oft to do on the last day of a con, the Antarctic Press table is having a sale.  I figured I would give the Deluxe Edition of “Gold Digger: The Movie” a try.  According to the box text the movie “retells the very first Gold Digger adventure” so I figured it might serve as a nice little introduction to the GD universe.  After having a bite to eat for dinner and doing laundry for the week, I fired it up.

SOUND PROBLEMS

As the top menu appeared, I heard a blast of music.  I quickly reached for my receiver’s remote and immediately turned down the sound.  I figured I had left the sound up from listening to the radio earlier but that is not the case.  The DVD is just loud.  I normally have the sound adjustment on my PS3 maxed out, because DVDs tend to be relatively quiet, but in this case I ended up turning it down to zero to make sure I don’t end up with angry neighbors or blown speakers.  After making the adjustments, I shrugged my shoulders and started the movie.

THE MOVIE

My initial impression is that Gold Digger: The Movie is intended for fans of the comic: it is assumed that the viewer already knows certain things.  As an example, there is no explanation given as to why Gina and Brittany refer to each other as sisters until near the end of the second act.  We also never find out just why the Digger sisters are looking for the Time Raft, and wouldn’t a 7-foot tall were-cheetah prove that some myths are valid?  That is my inner anal-retentive nerd talking, but a viewer unfamiliar with the series might be a bit puzzled at certain aspects of the movie.  I need to show it to someone unfamiliar with GD to see if my inner nerd should just be quiet and enjoy the show.  Actually that’s probably true, anyway.

The story is fairly straightforward: The first third of the movie establishes the adversarial yet good-natured relationship the Diggers have with each other and showcases their bad-assery in two Big Fights.  The middle of the movie features plenty of exposition and of course, we have the Climactic Battle at the end.  In truth, though, the movie is really all Gina and Brittany, and we gradually learn more and more about them as their adventure unfolds.  The sisterly bickering between the two survives the transition from comic to animation quite well and provides some of the movie’s funnier moments.  The other characters aren’t quite as well developed, and the villain does his duty,

SUMMARY

Much to my chagrin, sound issues persist throughout the DVD.  There is an odd echo whenever Gina Diggers speaks and Dreadwing’s voice sounds overprocessed.  This effect seems to lessen over the course of the feature but it never goes away completely.  The audio mix also gets a bit weird in the second act.  The music becomes too soft, and there appeared to be one or two ‘dead air’ moments.  In one scene Brittany is on the ground struggling to escape and while she appears to be growling or grunting we don’t hear anything at all.

As I watched the 3rd episode again to hear Fred Perry’s commentary, the audio completely turned to crap in the last few minutes.  This combined with Gina’s echo and the loud volume at the start make me wonder if something happened during the process of making the DVDs or if the audio was just poorly done to begin with.  I also thought it might have have been my Playstation 3, but the same thing happens when I play it on my iMac.

The animation gradually improves form episode to episode and really shines in the action sequences.  It is fascinating to see Fred Perry progress as an animator throughout the adventure and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Gold Digger: The Movie doesn’t quite do as good a job at being “Gold Digger 101” as I had hoped, though.  As I mentioned near the start, there seems to be an assumption that the viewer already knows certain things.

The voiceover work ranges from good (Gina Diggers) to adequate (Dreadwing appears to be trying to channel Tony Jay but doesn’t quite pull it off) to annoying (I quickly found Brittany Diggers’ voice grating but I think that’s more a reflection on me than anything else) to inconsistent (Elves).  Overall, it does the job, though.

Technical issues aside, fans of Gold Digger will be excited to see it come to life.  Strangers and neophytes to Fred Perry’s fantastic world might find themselves scratching their heads now and again, but nevertheless, Gold Digger: The Movie provides an hour of action-packed fun and I recommend it.

NOTE: The author received no compensation for this review.

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Uncategorized

RANDOM REVIEW – 2009

Another year has come and gone, and as I sit here bored at work, it seems as good a time as any to reflect on the end of what I like to call “the 2Ks.”

2009 was both a good and a bad year for me, personally. On the good side, I got off my rear and put the left side of my brain to work writing a few short stories and poems. I also started to pursue voice acting: taking lessons, getting into a studio for the first time, and doing some podcasting.

Interestingly enough, the shove that got my creative ball rolling again was Mizuumi-con, held on March 21st. There, I attended two panels; the first was a voice acting panel held by Kevin M. Connolly, which gave me an idea of what to expect going into the voice acting business. The second was Chris Holm’s “Inspiring Artists” panel. He and I had won the “My Cage” art and writing contests a while back, and it was my first time meeting him. At his panel, he told his story about (quite literally) where his art took him.

I started by going back through old ideas I had written down, thinking over which ones would be worth the effort to bring them to reality. I got started on a few things, and then a number of weeks later, Chris Holm emailed me. He wanted me to sit in on a meeting of an artists’ group that was starting up. I thought that it would be fun, and so I found myself at a coffee shop that Saturday afternoon. That group would eventually jell into First Storm Manga. My involvement with them has introduced me to some new friends, provided me with a creative outlet and led to some fun times spent at anime conventions.

Career-wise, the best I can say is that I had the same job at the end of the year as I did at the start of it. I was introduced to Military Flavored Baloney, as opposed to the Corporate Flavored Baloney I am used to having. At the end of the day, its still baloney, but the money’s good and the work isn’t too hard, so I’ll ride it out.

Moving on to the less-pleasant events of 2009, I lost two people that were important to me, namely Melinda Garcia, wife of my good friend Carlos Garcia, and my grandmother, Manuela Soliz. They are already sorely missed, and their passing has made me think about the direction I want to take my life in, but that is a topic for another time.

I had also hoped to have a house by the end of this year, but that got put aside due to the uncertainties of my job. Now that I feel more confident about my employment situation, I will start looking for a home in earnest, and my hope to have purchased one by summer.

In my opinion, 2009 was “The Year of the Attention Whore.” Maybe its just because we see them in the news more frequently, but I don’t recall the last time we had this many nutballs jumping up and down screaming “LOOK AT ME!” Just off the top of my head, we have Dick Cheney, Octomom, Joe Wilson, the Balloon Boy parents, Jon and Kate, the White House Gate Crashers, Lady Gaga, some prison escapee in England that has been taunting the cops via Facebook, and the various women that slept with Tiger Woods. Now, I’m not claiming any level of moral high ground, because I was admittedly watching and talking about them just like everyone else, so I guess I’m part of the problem.

It was bittersweet to have to say farewell to some folks in 2009, but new friends were also made. Thus, as a new year begins, I find myself a little more appreciative of my station in life and hopeful for the many possibilities that lay ahead in The New Year.

Here’s to you, 2009, don’t let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!

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RANDOM REVIEW

RANDOM REVIEW REVISITED – HP Mini 1000

I have owned my HP Mini 1000 netbook for just over seven months now, and it seems like as good a time as any to discuss my experience so far.

The original review can be read here.

WAS I A BETA TESTER?

It would appear that HP has corrected most, if not all, of the gripes that I had with my netbook.  Newer models of the HP Mini 1000 now have three USB ports, a standard VGA output, and I believe the whole “Mobile Mini Drive” malarkey has been done away with as well.  Big thumbs-up to HP for making those fixes, but they won’t be doing ME a whole lot of good anytime soon!

ITS SO SMALL AND KYOOT!

For all the press and hype, I don’t think Netbooks have become commonplace as of yet (not in San Antonio, anyway).  I have personally only seen two other Netbooks “in the wild” myself, and my Mini garners the occasional stare when I am out and about with it.  This usually leads into what has quickly become a prepared speech on the pros and cons of owning a Netbook.

Every so often I will get an “OMG ITS SO CUUUUTE!” from a woman, but I have yet to get any significant part of that attention thrown my way.  *sigh*

CRASH BANG BOOM!

Its as inevitable as the tides; you WILL eventually drop your portable computer at some point in time.  It happened to me in June, the Mini fell off of a countertop and the side smacked into a chair on the way down.  Needless to say, I freaked out.  Luckily, there appears to be no permanent damage, save for a nice dent in the speaker grille …so maybe NOW its not so cute!  As a consequence, the battery now has a tendency to fall out at random times, but it wasn’t nothing a little electrical tape could’t fix!

WHAT A DIFFERENCE AN OS MAKES

I was intrigued by the thought of installing Windows Vista on my Netbook at first.  Despite the optimizations and upgrades I had made to the Mini, Windows XP would still grunt and groan when running on the Mini’s modest hardware.  I did some research and found a few reports saying that installing Windows Vista on a Netbook was an excercise in futility, and having had my own bad experiences running Vista on underpowered hardware, I decided not to try.

Meanwhile, the computing press was busy gushing over the Windows 7
beta, and I became intrigued again.  On the surface, it sounded like madness: a newer version of a Microsoft operating system running better than the older one on underpowered hardware?  Unpossible!

Actually it was VERY possible!  I installed Windows 7 and the Mini felt much more responsive than it ever was under XP.  The Aero effects work just fine despite Intel’s nearly-worthless graphics hardware, and tethering my smartphone to get on the Internet when I’m “off the grid” works without any intervention on my part.  When Microsoft offered a discount on Windows 7 back in July, I jumped on it.  I installed Home Premium and I have been very happy with it.

The Mini was pretty good with Windows XP, but it’s GREAT with Windows 7.

ULTRA-PORTABLE BLISS

I have found my netbook to be a great portable computer; it has enough power to do everything I need it to do when on the road, and upgrading the RAM to 2GB made Windows happy.  I wish the battery life could be a bit longer, but except for that little gripe, I consider my HP Mini 1000 to have been a good purchase.

I would encourage anyone who needs a ultra-portable computer for basic tasks to look into purchasing a Netbook.  The price is right, the performance is good, and the portability is great…just be sure you test out the keyboard first!

NOTE: The author received no compensation for this review.

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Computers, RANDOM REVIEW, TECH

RANDOM REVIEW – HP Mini 1000

WHO NEEDS A LAPTOP?

For all the yakking I have been doing about my iMac, it has been easy to forget that I also recently acquired an HP Mini 1000 (just prior to the Great Gateway Crash of 2009).  It is also the second portable computer I have ever owned.  The first was a “luggable” 386 that I had back in college that also happened to be my first PC (my first-ever computer was a Commodore 64).  Eventually, it went to binary heaven and all of my PCs before purchasing the Mini since have been desktops.

I never gave any thought to owning another portable computer, having rarely lugged my luggable anywhere.  It was nice to be able to take it home during long holidays, but it was bulky enough to where I really didn’t want to take it anywhere else.  My advice to friends regarding laptops was always the same:  “Be 200% certain you need one before you buy one.”

I held to that philosophy for quite a few years.  At the time, laptops were expensive and easily broken.  To me, they only made sense for students and businesspeople, but not really for anyone else.  Prices eventually went down, but even then, I was uncertain of the quality of the less-expensive models.  I was also unwilling to spend enough to purchase one of decent quality; I figured that even the best laptop wouldn’t last very long. That mindset kept me from even considering a laptop.  I would occasionally flirt with the idea, but would never follow through on it.

ENTER THE NETBOOK

I was intrigued by Netbooks when they first came onto the scene, but I initially turned my nose up at them.  They had limited storage space, cramped keyboards, underpowered processors, small screens, no CD/DVD drives (admittedly, not as big a deal as it used to be) and just plain could not do all of the things that a full-powered notebook could.   Also, my T-Mobile Dash was good enough to get by when I was “off the grid.”  I could check my email and do some light web browsing with my Dash, and that was all I needed.

It soon occurred to me that if the only things that I were doing on the road were email and web browsing, why not do them on a bigger screen using an actual computer that could also do a few other things?  After all, whenever I was on the road, I was doing little things like email and web.  The desktop was for all the big nasty stuff.   I figured that spending $300 on a quality Netbook was a better idea than spending $400-600 on a cheap notebook, so I picked up a HP Mini 1116NR at Ye Olde Best Buy.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

The first thing that impressed me about the Mini was its size.  The length and width are about equal to a comic book and it is only one inch tall.  The 8.9-inch screen is nice, but I should have spent the extra fifty bucks for the 10.  The keyboard is easily one of the best things about the Mini.  According to HP, the keyboard is about 92% the size of a laptop keyboard, and quickly took to it.  Incidentally, the iMac’s keyboard is just a bit larger, the difference being a little additional space in between the keys.  Unlike the iMac’s keyboard, though, the Mini’s keyboard also has all the keys I need to get around Windows.  The touch pad took a little getting used to, and I eventualy started carrying my iMac’s Mighty Mouse around for extended computing.

I was a little disappointed with the Mini’s performance at first; there were noticeable lags when running Firefox, and occasionally the system would stutter as if waiting for something.  It also seemed to take awhile to get going after I turned it on.

After doing some research I found that the main bottleneck is the hard drive.  The Mini has a new-fangled Solid State Drive which is basically some flash memory chips with a hard drive controller attached.  The benefits are durability and reduced power usage, but they come at the cost of speed and performance.  After doing some searching online, I found some Windows tweaks that improved performance somewhat, and tossed in an extra gigabyte of memory for good measure.  The Mini takes a little while to get up to speed, but once it gets going, the performance is acceptable for web browsing and running Microsoft Word.  I have also been able to do some light audio editing using Audacity.  Frankly, I think this could be a pretty capable PC if it had a regular hard drive.

Speaking of the hard drive, the 1116NR has a 16GB hard drive, about half of which is taken up by Windows and the (thankfully small) amount of crapware installed on the machine.  Expansion options are available (see below) and an SD card slot provides an easyway to transfer files.

ON THE ROAD

The first “road trip” I took with the Mini was to my parents’ house for Easter.  Everyone oohed and aaahed at the Mini’s size and I was pleased to find that I could tether it to my cell phone and surf the Net at a whopping 10 mb/sec on T-Mobile’s crappy 2G cell phone network.  The connection would get flaky at times, and T-Mobile’s 3G coverage is way behind their competitors.  I think I’ll be looking for a new cell phone provider when my contract ends in December.

I soon bought a small case for the Mini, and while I’m pretty sure carrying it around costs me a few Man Points, the utility of having everything I need (and a few things I don’t) is worth it.

DICK MOVES

Ironically, the HP Mini’s biggest problem is HP.  I know that they have mouths to feed at home, and stockholders that need to be kept happy, but there are some pretty blatant design decisions that appear to have been made for the sake of squeezing more money out of customers.  It might be good business, but certain things come off as outright “dick moves” when compared to other Netbooks.

Many Netbooks have standard VGA connectors, which are identical to those found on full-sized notebooks. These are used to connect the Netbook to a monitor, which can be used as a secondary display.  You simply plug the monitor’s cable into the connector and press the appropriate button.  Instead of a standard VGA connector, though, the HP Mini uses a custom connector, which, of course, requires a custom cable, which, of course, can be bought from HP.  Shortly after I purchased the Mini, I went to HP’s website to see how much the cable was going to cost.  Initially, the cable was priced at $20…and was out of stock.  A few weeks later, the cable was available, but priced at $35.  While I certainly now have no intention of using the Mini’s VGA-out functionality, I would be pretty upset if I needed to.

The HP Mini also “features” a recessed USB port on the right side to the back. This connector is for HP’s “Mini Mobile” expansion drive, which can be had for $25 and bumps up the Mini’s internal storage capacity by an additional 4GB.  Some smart guy figured out that the “Mini Mobile” drive was actually a thin Transcend USB drive attached to a cover…the same cover that is included with the HP Mini.  I picked up a 8GB drive for $30 from Amazon, attached the cover, snapped it into place, and got twice the storage capacity for only a few dollars more.

The Mini’s 3-cell battery life clocks in at about two and a half to three hours.  I have read that is good for a Netbook, but I find myself looking for an outlet quicker than I would like to at the coffee shop.  HP is more than happy to sell an extended life battery for over a hundred dollars which makes zero sense to me considering that it raises the Mini’s cost of ownership into cheap-laptop territory, which, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of a Netbook!

CONCLUSION

Overall, the Mini does its job well, has a great keyboard and screen, and is highly portable.

If I could go back and do it again, though, I would have gone with the 10-inch screen, as well as purchasing a Mini with a standard hard drive instead of the SSD.  In my opinion, the performance hit that comes from using a SSD is too high, and mars what is an otherwise nice portable computer.  Also, while I can easily live with 16GB of storage, I know I am in the minority.

Despite the performance issues and HP’s over-reliance on add-ons, I have enjoyed my Mini so far, and hope to continue to do so for some time.  I may try to install Windows 7 out of morbid curiosity, XP is growing a little long in the tooth, and I hear 7 has some SSD optimizations that just might give the Mini a performance boost.

The decision to get a Netbook rests on whether you can live with the compromises that come with owning one.  The HP Mini is not meant for power users or gamers, but for those who would like an inexpensive computer to handle light duties while on the road, it hits the spot.

NOTE: The author received no compensation for this review.

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