Red Faction: Armageddon

I played Red Faction back in 2001 when it first came out and enjoyed the heck out of it.   It was the very first game to come out with the Geo-Mod game engine which allowed for massive destruction of the game models and levels.   The game itself was otherwise unremarkable, but the fact that you could destroy everything made it awesome.

I find it funny that one little thing like that can make or break a game entirely, and the massively destructable nature of the Red Faction games entirely “makes” these titles.

Red Faction II was one of those games that came out only a year or so later but it managed to skip my notice and the series sorta fell off my radar.

The other day I picked up the latest in the franchise; Red Faction: Armageddon.   And I’m glad to say that it’s up to the original games standards in all ways .. to include the shortcomings..

Let me start by saying that by all standards it’s a good game all things considered, and I did enjoy it.  But there are some cons:

This game is of course plagued by one of my common complaints with all games these days;  The game is too short.. by a long shot..  That’s typical of all games though so I think the industry as a whole is trying to bring our game length expectations down fraction by fraction until we get a 3 hour tour for the same $60.  Oh well.. This game is longer than some, and I realize that for every minute of gameplay it likely takes them months.. but still..  This game clocks in at about 10 hours.

And it also suffers from another common issue with games these days;  Its too easy..   My theory as to why this happens lately is because most of the modern games are first made for consoles, and then ported to PC.. as such the controls on a PC are much easier to use, so the situations you’re in are suddenly that much easier?  This is a wild guess, but it will likely seem logical to anyone who has tried (and failed horribly) to play a game on a console using those crap controllers..  I can see how any game would be difficult if you handicap someone with one of those damn things..

Most games have at least 4 difficulty settings; Easy, Normal, Hard and Expert.. Or some myriad of names that equate to the same thing..  And in just about every game out there, I know that I should start playing it on “Hard” because anything easier would be pointless.   I can’t imagine how simplistic and juvenile “Easy” must be on these games because “Hard” is anything but..  This game suffers badly in this area because even on “Hard” I didn’t find it remotely challenging.  ”Hard” should be difficult.  Make it a challenge so that I will want to play through again..

I think its likely that game makers are afraid of making their games actually difficult because then people might get frustrated and stop playing.. However, I’m of the opinion that making a game like this too easy even when set on “hard” in order to keep the game “fun” is akin to handing the little league losers a trophy for participation..   Reward me for doing well, not for just showing up.  If I set the game to “hard” I believe it’s reasonable to expect the game to actually be difficult.

And finally my major complaint about the game is the weapons they give you.    Within the first minute or two of gameplay they give you the ONLY WEAPON YOU WILL EVER NEED; the gravity gun.   Now, I don’t want to complain about the gravity gun.. there is nothing more fun that hurling a whole building of destructive debris at an enemy.. and you generally have a reasonable expectation of doing fairly well when you use the same gun to hurl an enemy at a far wall only to watch him gib.     But, why do I need the other guns?

They give you a whole slew of other wizbang cool guns and more ammo than you can shake a stick at just lying around but I can honestly say I didn’t even start using ANY of them until near the very end of the game.  Up to that point I just used the gravity gun to do everything..   Either tossing the mobs around or throwing entire structures at them..  The other guns seemed pointless mostly.. and the ludicrous amounts of ammo lying around, doubly so.

This game is also extremely linear, so much so if you get out of the “area” you’re supposed to be in a countdown to your doom will appear.. better boogy back to where you’re supposed to be pronto..  I don’t really want to hold this up as a complaint though, this isn’t a sandbox game and like the original was never meant to be..   Still I can see how some might be put off by the count down thing..

All in all though I enjoyed the game.   There is still something very appealing about being about appease your darker side by waging wanton destruction on the carefully designed levels..  And if you’re not giddily giggling like a school girl over being about to toss mobs around like rag dolls to their ultimate doom, then you don’t know how to have a good time..  it was fun.  Though it’s replayability is pretty much zero.

I give this game 3.5 out of 5. (That’s a good score from me.)

Tron Legacy Poster

Note: Spoilers will be announced below.  The first couple of paragraphs are spoiler free.

Easily one of my favorite movies as a kid, Tron was a movie that not only defined a generation but also began the monumental shift in the movie industry towards using computers as a tool.    Without Tron leading the way showing what could be done, many of the movies today would have never been made.

I loved the first Tron for it’s fantastical notion that computers were alive and that programs were people too..  It was great if a little heavy handed, thin in the plot department and some pretty obvious technological issues..etc..  However, even with all the originals shortcomings, I was pretty sure back then even that we’d see a sequel to the movie in short order cause it was awesome..

Set the way forward machine to 28 fricken years and finally we have something to talk about!    I had all but forgotten about Tron to be honest until 2008 or so when I saw that first comic-con shakey cellphone cam footage of the new TR2N trailer at which point I had a tron-gasm..  Then I really thought about it and I was kinda pissed it took this long to come out with a sequel, but then once I realized what they were doing there was a pretty glaring obvious reason why it took that long..

So without spoiling anything yet, I will say that the new movie is probably an 8.5 out of 10.  The visual effects were excellent, the costumes were okay, the acting was good, the plot was still pretty thin though and that might be it’s downfall..  All in all I thought it was good and about as much as they could have done with the film.   It was an entertaining movie, and well worth the viewing.

So now on to the spoilers.  You may want to look away if you haven’t seen it yet.

So first I’m going to talk about all those things I didn’t like – it’s my show I can do it in my order;

The biggest thing they were showcasing and the likely reason it took 28 years to make a second film was of course; Clu.  Making Jeff Bridges young again in order to play his programmatical counterpart was no mean feat.  In fact I’m sure it took tens of thousands of hours to put that character together and get it fully realized.   But, it looked wrong to me.   I understand why they did it and I agree that it had to be done in order to tell this story but I just didn’t buy it.   He looked wrong.

See the issue is that we know what people look like and how they should move.  It’s one of the reasons that Jurassic Park lasts the test of time; there are no CG people.  The dinosaurs look perfect to us even to this day because we have no real concept of how those critters should move or look.  So that 18 year old technology still works.

Clu was a CG copy of Mr. Bridges and to me it stood out that he was CG.   This was really jarring for me.  In a couple of the scenes were Clu was emotional and moved his face muscles he looked way more realistic to me..

This honestly was my biggest gripe about the whole movie.  It’s the thing they focused on the most, and I just don’t think they got it.   I don’t want to belittle the effort though because it’s SO FRICKEN CLOSE.. I mean they are 95% there.. but something is missing and I can’t quite put my finger on it other than to say, his eyes and face didn’t move correctly.  They seemed really dead and motionless.

So the next thing was that after they did all that work on making Clu, they did ZERO work on Tron himself.  You learn who Clu’s henchman is pretty quickly, it’s almost obvious.. Yet he wears his motorcycle helmet the whole movie so they don’t have to do his face like they did Clu’s .. and as much as I just bitched that they failed at making Clu’s I’m offended they didn’t make Trons.

Seriously it seems such a cop-out to me that Mr. Boxleitner didn’t get the same facial treatment..  One might say it’s because it would have taken focus away from the Flynn/Clu/Sam story.. but I dunno, give us some credit..

The next thing was the complete lack of a transition.  Again I felt this was a tad jarring, and I’m not sure if it’s because I expected it or if they were assuming you had seen the first movie and didn’t need to waste time and money on it or what..   But in the first movie there was a point after Flynn hit “enter” on the keyboard that they laser lit up and began to disassemble him..   He then traveled down the fuzz filled pipe into the computer..  It was a build up, a suspenseful transition from the real to the computerized..    Not so much here..  It seemed like  just a reel change here.. Blip! you’re inside .. Go!  I was disappointed by that..

And lastly, the plot.  Thiiin.. Like anorexic thin..  In fact much of the plot seemed to be loosely tied thread that they used to drag you from one exciting graphic packed scene to the next..  The funny thing is, it might be enough..  I dunno, we shall see..

But really, that’s it.. those are the few things that really disappointed me.. And honestly those are minor.. The Clu visual was jarring for me, so it seemed a constant reminder / annoyance, the lack of transition between worlds and the paper thin plot but really beyond that everything else was good.

I did find it amusing that apparently Encom OS12 is linux based? hehe Oh and the whole time Jeff Bridges was on the screen I expected him to say “Well, Yeah.  The Clu Abides..” or some such.. heh  Love ya Jeff..

The visuals were AWESOME..  They way exceeded my expectations across the board visually..  It’s clear that Hollywood knows how to make a visually stunning movie..   I have to tell you the recognizers looked fantastic..  The lightcycles looked awesome and the light fliers (?) looked really cool..

I’m glad the transport ship and other things made a showing too..  In fact I liked how they seemed to give a nod to the original movie in just about every scene some how..   From Sams apartment building that had a huge gate in front of it with “Dumont” (the gate keeper) written at top, to Flynns old foot ball game on the couch.. ( I had that game as a kid !!)  to “It’s all in the wrists..”   They kept doing that, and I liked that.. nice touch guys..

I thought all the actors did a really good job..  I was a tad worried that Garrett Hedlund wasn’t the right choice for the role of sam mainly because of Eragon.. ugh..  but he did a fine job..  Olivia Wilde did a good job bringing Quorra to life as a this weirdly tough but vulnerable warrior chick program..   Michael Sheen as Castor was a bit over the top for my tastes, but Beau Garret as Gem offset his character enough to make him not completely obnoxious.. etc..

A lot of folks were upset that Yori of the original movie (played by Cindy Morgan) wasn’t in this one.. and at first I thought she should be in it too, but now not so much..  She just didn’t have a place in this movie..  I have no idea how they would have shoe-horned her in and maintained flow..

Oh and of course I have to give a nod to Daft Punk who did a killer job on the sounds..  Well done guys..

So there you have it..  I look forward to seeing all the extras and directors commentary..  I really do like the movie and hope it does really well because I want to see where they go with this..   This movie was very much a passing of the torch kind of movie with the ending it had, but I just hope they don’t make us wait another fricken 28 years for TR3N!!

FU Again er 2...

I never played the first Force Unleashed game and I sorta regretted it as I knew several folks who said it was a pretty good game..  So I was really excited when they announced a Force Unleashed 2 for the PC.    I figured that I’d finally get to try what everyone was talking about..

Well I’ve tried it..  What a piece of shit..  This is quite honestly the first game that has pissed me off in a long time..  And I mean absolutely barking at the computer, pissed off..

So lets give the pros;

It’s beautiful..  The graphics engine that they have used is a very nice one and it does a really good job of immersing you into the Star Wars universe..

Plus it’s a console to PC port so the expected controls are pretty bad, but I have seen worse console ports in this department so I want to give them a thumbs up here.. Not great.. Certainly not as good as a native PC game, but not terribad.

Now lets talk about the cons;

The camera system.  The gameplay.. The gameplay and uh.. the gameplay!!

First lets talk about the camera system..   Whoever the asshat was that thought it was a good idea to decouple the camera system from the players perspective and force you to control the character from whatever fucked up camera angle they wanted to throw at you for any given instance, needs to be kicked in the balls while being garroted by a hairy sweaty man using a live eel..  And then shot.

The camera system makes this game nearly unplayable as you don’t look in the direction you’re going!!  No no you look in whatever direction either your mouse was looking at previously OR (and this is by far worse) whatever fixed camera position they want you in for that particular scene..

It makes controlling your character impossible.  This is something that does NOT translate well from a console game to a PC game.  It only serves to piss people off,  so stop it!

But that’s not the worst part.  No no.

The worst part is the game play in which they decide every few minutes to throw a quicktime event at you..  For those of you that are unfamiliar with quick time events they go something like this.. PUSH E NOW!   Oh too late… You died.. Start over.

The next time it will be some other random control you have to do at exactly the right or you fail it!   Plus, the correct control request is displayed at various spots around the screen instead of in the same place..  So you never know whats coming, when.. or for how long..etc..

This shit made for crappy game play 20 years ago in Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, and it makes for crappy game play today..  It’s cheap and easy for the programmers so that’s why they do it.. Not because it’s fun.. I can’t understand how console gamers like this crap but clearly they do or they wouldn’t do it..

Now.. Combine those two issues and you begin to understand why I had to stop playing every few minutes to wipe the projectile scream-spittle off my monitor..

You can’t see where you’re going or what you’re doing because you’re stuck in their camera angle and you have to perform some bullshit quick time event that borders on the impossible..

I got to the Gorgon scene (or whatever the big god of war style beasty is in the arena is called), tried it about 20 times and uninstalled the game.    It pissed me off bad enough trying to lock his arms in to the shackles but really pissed me off the next part where they throw an awkward camera angle at you followed by a fucked up quick time event and don’t explain at all what you’re supposed to do..

Done.

This game is shit.  Lucas Arts should hang their head as it does nothing to foster good memories about the franchise, it’s a painful game that isn’t fun what so ever..

I’ll give it 1 star for being pretty and half a star for actually not doing a bad job converting the controls to PC.. but the gameplay and camera system sink it completely.

Originally released back in 1997 I some how missed this story until now..  At this point, it includes 4 books and I’m part way through the second one.. So far it appears to be a fantastic continuation of the first book beginning exactly where the first book left off as if it were one long book.. Yay!   It’s good.. It’s damn good..  The authors voice and the depth of the characters make it so..

I highly recommend it.  Clickie to Barnes and Nobles

At this point I have only one complaint, and that’s the eReader version appears to have a lot of typos.. Some are quite jarring.. But you can easily ignore them.. Or if you get the paper/hard back you wont have this problem..

5/5 from me.. Good work George..

Apparently they are making the series into an HBO special in 2011..  It better be good!

Splintercell Conviction

I really like a good first person shooter..  But most FPS games these days aren’t about thinking or planning your way out, they are just run and gun, “zerg-fests” where you run in shoot a few.. die, respawn, run in shoot a few, die, respawn.. wash, rinse, repeat..  Boring..

The new Splintercell game isn’t this..  I would call it more of a first person sneaker.  In that it’s entirely conceivable to play through large swaths of the game without firing a shot, and that’s just cool..

As with any game it has it’s ups and downs, but over all its up and I think UBISoft has set themselves up with a game that they can kick out a lot of downloadable content for, if they leverage this correctly..

Things that make this game stand out for me are the little details, like the movement mechanics.. Frankly, I think the movement mechanics are great!   And the cover system is fantastic, unlike some other games I have played recently..  It did take a little getting used to some aspects of it; like I’d prefer the shift key to not be a toggle for run/walk but rather be a press and hold kind of thing but that’s largely because it’s what I’m used to with other games, not because its inherently wrong..

There are lots of different weapons that you can use ( or not use ) and you have options to upgrade them..  There are also a whole pack of different thrown gadgets that you can use and they all have their use..

I also really like the color vs black/white mechanic..  At first I thought this would be jarring and break the suspension of disbelief but the opposite was true.. I feel it actually helps a lot..

Lots of textual help everywhere which again I thought would be distracting or break the suspension, but actually they way they worked it in was great and made it sorta feel like a movie..

Really my complaints about the game are minor;

1.  The game is short — I finished the game in 11 hours, and I was going slow.. I’m pretty sure you could finish it a heck of a lot faster than that if you tried..  It seemed really complete though in that the 11 hours was packed with stuff to do, but I kinda wish games were longer.. they seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

2.  Very linear — to be expected really.. There is usually only one way to go..

3.  A couple of the levels need more direction — the car garage sneak event annoyed me and really was the only level that kinda pissed me off, but primarily because I had no idea where I was supposed to go and it took me several tries..

4.  PRODUCT PLACEMENT!!  Dear god..  I wonder how much Cisco and the producers of the new Nightmare on Elm Street paid to get their product so highly and obviously placed in the game..  Frankly this was jarring.. I didn’t like this..  All computer monitors can be destroyed!! uh.. unless there is a Cisco logo on it, then no..  etc..  There were others.. it was annoying..

5.  And finally the AI, while not dreadfully stupid the enemy aren’t too bright.. For example I was right around the corner from a guy who knew I was there.. he had the brilliant idea of throwing a frag grenade at me.. it basically dropped at his feet and I just remained hidden while he died.. heh  it was amusing, but kinda dumb..   The biggest issue is that they are constantly yelling what they are doing which they took directly from FEAR and was a problem in that game too that I know folks complained about..  Oh well..

All in all it was a great game.. and I will likely play it again on hard..

I think I actually give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Star Trek Online Review

Firstly I want to say that I personally think it’s extremely hard to judge a game entirely by the first 15 levels.. Any MMO to date that one cares to name changes drastically as you play across the level range and to judge that game by the first couple levels is simply foolish. You haven’t experienced the whole of the game.. So I’m going to post my review about it, but I want you to keep in mind that there are going to be a lot of things I simply haven’t done yet..

Also, there are a lot of people on the forums bashing the game for one reason or another, some reasons are valid, some aren’t. I would argue that most of those people really haven’t truly experienced the game in its fullest, but at the same time I will concede the point that if it doesn’t appeal to them early on, it may not later either and that they should just move on without the flames.

What you’re not seeing on the forums is the influx of praise or posts by people who are largely happy, not because they don’t exist but rather because the complainers are typically a lot more vocal minority.. People that complain loudly are typically those people who think they are righteous and have entitlement issues..  They are “right and by god you’re gonna know my opinion..”

So with that — here’s my righteous opinion on the the first 15 levels of fed play and the first 12 or so of Klingon.. I only really have 2 major complaints.

But first some general over arching comments — please keep in mind there is no order to my thoughts;

The server’s are completely flooded and Cryptic wasn’t ready for the load.. Completely understandable if you consider that they just opened up the beta for quite possibly the single most popular science fiction IP on the planet. (Is star trek more popular than star wars? I don’t actually know..) They are aware of the issue and have stated repeatedly that they are taking action to fix it. Kudos guys.

I have seen people bitch that “this has been the worst beta ever” and that simply isn’t true.  Not even close.  I’m pretty sure Anarchy Online still holds that title firmly, and likely will forever..  In fact I don’t really think this beta has been all that bad considering the volume of traffic they are getting.. Sure there are queues, server lag, and disconnects but all of those are brought about by the volume of players..  In fact the majority of the issues the game has can likely be traced back to simple server lag due to volume.

Is it bug free?  no.   But then neither is WoW or EQ and those games have been out for years. I don’t really understand why people expect a brand new game to be bug free.. *shrug*  I do take it as a very positive sign that they have patched the game every night during the open beta..  That implies to me that they are actively working on the issues which is great.

I think the game graphics look good.. I have seen quite a few threads on the forums about how they graphics look poor, and I just don’t agree. It doesn’t look photo realistic like some of the very early preview teaser images did years ago, but that’s okay.. It looks good and succeeds in suspending my disbelief into thinking I’m playing a game in a Star Trek universe.

The UI is good though the map system needs to be better explained. It took me a while to understand the area map and the galaxy map and why some systems were in my system list some of the time, and not in my list other parts of the time..etc.. It’s easy once you understand it but completely confusing while you don’t..  Lack of documentation or explanation is almost a theme in this game..

The skills are confusing but mostly because they don’t explain what they do well enough. It also doesn’t explain well enough things like your characters class to ship class combination’s.. Is it a bad idea to be an engineer, in a science ship? Why? If it is bad that means if you go science you’re stuck in the same 2 ships for 20 levels.. ouch.. (maybe longer, I don’t know what ships are available at T3)

What does +18 in Science Vessel Captain actually do for me? Games like WoW, Eve, and even Champions to some degree have a LOT of math behind it.. This game clearly does too but you don’t really expose that math to the players in a clear way. A lot of players, myself included, actually enjoy pondering the right character build and the best way we can achieve what it is we want to such a degree as to actually build spreadsheets.. Eve is a game totally about spreadsheets ( a little too spreadsheety at times ) and players love that.. Expose those numbers to us.. Let us know what skilling up something actually does, or all of those skills you invested all that time in to create for us mean nothing.

I’m sure all of these things will be documented eventually but right now it smacks of information that the developers all know and think of as obvious where as the players coming to it for the first time just stand there confused.   Documentation is your friend.

The ground combat is a little weak right now and I personally think it’s boring, repetitive and painfully scripted but I think it will develop over time.  It very much smacks of CoH door missions and that system needs more versatility.  Give players options that change the outcome.. etc..   I can’t say as I enjoy the ground combat much though because every game to date has been about ground combat.  I’m much more interested in the space combat, that being said they still have a lot of work to do on the ground if they plan to serve both..

As to space combat, Right now I can say I really enjoy it though it gets very “samey” pretty quickly.    I think that’s largely due to the fact that I have experienced basically 4 ships total..  And flying around seeing nothing (mostly) but Miranda ships get’s old..

Personally I hope there are a lot more ships in the game come release. I love how the ships are customizable but there still aren’t enough chassis and what not to choose from. Maybe that gets better later on, but in the beginning its weak as you have 1 ship. Then when you level up to get your tier two ships, you have a choice of three technically but since you already decided your officer type (tactical, engineer or science) you only really have 1 logical choice.

I think players identify with their avatars a lot more than most game creators take into account and as such they need to give us even more options.  Plus the ability to add fleet markings would be handy.  It’s minor I know, but it helps establish community and a sense of pride which is important in an MMO.

I could make a long list of other complaints like, why did they go with left and right versus port and starboard.. Or why isn’t there any Klingon PVE play etc.. but really at this point I’d rather talk about whats there than what’s NOT there.. So with that — I have two complaints:

Major Complaint One — One of the worst mistakes they could make in this game is the same thing that in my mind killed the City franchise and Champions.. I’m gonna call it “Mission leveling” for the lack of a better term. The concept is this; You get a mission and the more people that do the mission with you, the harder the mission gets. So if you solo a mission you fight one or two weak mobs, but if you bring a whole group suddenly its 3 or 4 hard hitting bosses and several weaker mobs..etc..

Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but CoH and CO proved it to be a horrible idea because it actually encourages players to NOT group.. this kills the need for “community”.. More over it gives players no sense of accomplishment because they know a mission is simply a cake walk if they solo it. There should be things in the game that require groups and missions should be statically leveled.  Do away with this balancing thing..It’s a failed experiment..

You should be able to get missions that are so hard you can’t do it without help.. Missions that scale like they do is just a bad design and this is the third time they have done it..

A mission that is the same level as you, should present you with mobs that are roughly the same as you.. If it’s a higher level mission they should be harder hitting.. if it’s lower level they should be weaker..etc..

I realize that this is very much the WoW and EQ model for doing quests but it has stood the test of time and it’s a known..  Right now I can’t help but think they have broken this very simple concept.

Major Complaint Two –  I want crafting.. I want to be able to harvest asteroids like in Eve and create stuff.. I can’t fathom an MMO game that has virtually no crafting system what so ever..  And sorry but the current system they have that they say is like crafting simply isn’t.

Mindlessly warping around a mission looking for the various anomolies that you get crap from that let you turn in for an upgraded item.. yeah that’s not crafting.. I hope they fix that..

In the end there is a little bit of the “city of star trek” that I was worried about in my earlier post.  There is a little bit of champions in it.. there is a little of city in it.. etc..  Cryptic is going with what they know.. But they might have enough of a winner here because its sort of two games in one (space and ground) and with the addition of PVP in both places you sorta have 4 games in one..  Now consider the ability to play both sides, federation or klingon and now its x2 again..

There might be enough different options to keep this game going for a while.. I’m enjoying it for now at least..

LightScribe Label Example

Back in 2004 Hewlett-Packard engineer Daryl Anderson had the notion that if you can burn data on to a disc, why couldn’t use use that same technology to burn the label?  And thus the LightScribe burner was born..

I had always wanted to pick one of these suckers up and never got around to it because I already had a CD/DVD +/- burner and didn’t need a new one..  I couldn’t reason the cost of getting a second burner when I didn’t really use the one I had all that often..

Well about 4 months ago my old burner went off into the weeds and never came back, enabling me to buy a Lightscribe external burner and bid all my labeling woe’s goodbye! Sorta..

I don’t want to claim the label burning idea as my own, but I have to admit I had the same idea several times after many an hour of trying to get some form of “pretty” label into my CD’s without completely throwing them out of balance..   And I am opt’ing to review the technology as a whole, not an individual burner..  They will all work about the same..

So, with that I have to say the burner itself is excellent.. I have had zero dead discs (discs that just fail for no reason during the burn process) and it is pretty darn fast at burning the disk data..  My old burner would have dead discs all the time and was slow as hell by comparison..  This is likely just due to the new 16x burner being a generation (or two?) newer than my old one..

So.. the long and short of it is, when it comes to burning your data — it works just fine.  But that’s not the real reason I purchased it.. I want a device that can burn labels so that I don’t have to use stickers, a special printer or even (god forbid) a sharpie..

Stickers tend to throw the disc out of balance which at modern high drive speeds can be a bad thing.. Special printers can be pricey (though the new ones that print right on the disc do a nice job) and the require inks, and in some cases label stickers..  And if I have to resort to a sharpie no one will know what is on the darn disc cause my hand writing is horrible..

So this is where the technology is supposed to really shine and it does to a point but I have some complaints..

Firstly, let me say it’s awesome being able to photoshop up some labels and just burn them to the disc..  The Lightscribe folks have even put together a software package that allows you to cobble together labels from preexisting templates, with lots and lots of other templates downloadable off their website..

That’s nice..

But (complaint #1) it’s ungodly slow..  It takes something like 6 minutes to burn an ISO with this 16x burner? I don’t know the exact time but it’s pretty darn fast.. It then takes about 35 minutes to burn the label..  Why does it take so long?

That wouldn’t be too bad if it weren’t for the fact that (complaint #2) the label is extremely light or faded and hard to read.  Folks on one forum I browsed were joking that we have to wait for the “DarkScribe” burner to come out before the labels will be easy to read..  Frankly the contrast ratio is extremely poor..  For the amount of time it took, it should produce a much sharper image than it does.. Apparently this is something new to the 16x discs and the old 8x discs didn’t do this..

Also, I haven’t tested this yet but I’m told all you have to do is burn the label multiple times in order for it to be easier to read.. that means though that you have to suffer that 35 minute label burn several times.. Bleh..  Apparently around the center of each disc there is a barcode that allows the drive to know the precise rotational position of the disc, enabling multiple burns..

And finally, (complaint #3) apparently you have to take special storage precautions with the discs or else the labels will fade..  Seriously?!

I don’t know how bad the fading can get as the labels seem somewhat faded right out of the burner..  I think any amount of fading would render the label unreadable in fairly short order..

So.. there you have it.. I love the technology but the fact that it’s Slow as hell, Faded unless burned multiple times, and Can fade further seems like some pretty stiff drawbacks..

Suddenly the printer that can print directly on the disc, in color no less, seems like a better option..   (Yeah lightscribe can’t do color)..  One thing I was surprised by was the cost of the media..  Lightscribe discs used to be a lot more expensive than regular CD/DVD’s.. that isn’t the case any longer.. So yay for that..

All in all I’m happy with the purchase and would recommend the burner, but you have to understand that you will need to burn the label a couple times to get a good looking label with any contrast to it..

Sony DR-BT21G

In 1994 Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson has a stroke of genius when they invented the personal area networking (PAN) protocol known today as Bluetooth for Ericsson phones.   By the year 2000 it was pretty widely known that Bluetooth was something hot!  A lot of major companies jumped on to the Bluetooth Special Interests Group with the intent of developing some really neat technology..  And ever since I heard about the protocol I immediately though, “they need headphones that use those!!”..

Well set the way forward machine to 2009 and I FINALLY have a set of stereo headphones that use the Bluetooth protocol!  Yay!   I know they have actually been out for over a year but it took me this long to find a pair that I thought would be worth having, AND I had a device that would actually support it.

I have at home a Mac Mini (which I love) that supports all the various Bluetooh profiles and can fully support these headsets, and I have an iphone which I thought could too..   I use these headphones with my Mac Mini to listen to all my streaming music as well as my Ventrilo machine when I’m playing games..  It works very well..  Upon discovery of the device the Mini installed 2 new sound devices for output, and one sound device for input.

Apparently these have to have a “headset” device and a “headphones” device depending on how you use them..   In headset mode you get mono audio output, and the mic (cleverly disguised as a hole) works too..  In headphones mode the mic doesn’t work.  At first I wanted to complain about this.. I mean you either get mono with mic or stereo, but no stereo with mic?!

Then it occurred to me that the only time I would use the mic would be with my phone (more on that in a second) or when talking in Vent. or Teamspeak… neither of which would use stereo anyway..  So stereo headphones AND a mic would be pointless..

The battery life seems good too.. The box says it’s rated for 11 hours of either headphone or headset(+mic) use and 100 hours of standby time..  I can’t talk to the standby time as I tend to charge things pretty often, but I believe the 11 hours of headphone time..  I have yet to actually run out of juice while using them so.. *shrug*

All in all I like them.. I think they were a good purchase and I would recommend them.. They are light and comfortable and fold up nicely when you want to store them..

Pairing is simple and works well, though I had an odd issue the first time I paired with my Mac.. For whatever reason I had to reboot my mac to get anything to work post pairing.. I think that was more due to the fact that my mac hadn’t been rebooted in like 4 months hehe.. It was starting to act wonky and I have all manner of stuff running on there so this was likely me, not the headphones..   Also it appears that “Teamspeex” doesn’t fully support these, though Ventrilo and everything else works perfectly.

My only real complaint about them is that they must have a wall charger instead of just a USB charger..  This is a really.. really minor complaint and I hesitate to even mention it..  I just thought it was odd that it had a wall charger instead of a computer one.. but it occurs that a lot of folks may never actually use this device with a PC, but rather entirely with a IPod like device or their phone..  At which point they are still near a computer..  *shrug* still its minor..

The other complaint I have has nothing to do with this device, but rather my iPhone.   I have the first generation iPhone and it can’t suppport the A2DP connection required to listen to music.. Which pisses me off..   Not because it can’t do it, but because it totally can do it and Apple has it turned off for the original phones in order to get you to upgrade to the newer iPhones.. (If you have a 3G or 3Gs it works fine)

Good job Sony..

Razer Mamba

Update (Jan 23, 2011) :: So several months ago the mouse optics just up and quit.. Everything else worked, but slowly over the course of a couple days the optics got less and less responsive and then finally stopped all together..   I had put the mouse in the closet on the shelf which is generally where hardware goes to die at my house..  Today I went in there to do some cleaning and putter around only to find that the mouse battery cover had been forced off by a battery that had swelled to more than double its original size!!

My opinion on this thing is back to “avoid at all costs”..  The level of support being what it was and the number of other folks who have similar issues tells me that this thing sucks bad.  Add to that the random deaths, the number of folks who have similar optical issues, the battery swelling issue, the very short battery life and it’s inability to work on some surfaces… yeah.. don’t buy this mouse.

Update (Nov 1, 2009) :: After all is said and done, I have the mouse back from Razer and it is working as I think it should.   It doesn’t do the sleep-death thing it was doing previously which implies to me that the old firmware was horribly buggy and the newer firmware is required for sure..  That was the number one issue previously and it appears to be resolved..   The Razer management team that I dealt with were nothing but professional and courteous though I am still concerned about the “standard” support they are providing as those folks didn’t give anywhere near the level of support that I got directly from the president and his main man (of course)..  My over all opinion on the device itself has gone from “avoid at all costs” to, “okay its not bad so long as you get the most recent version”.  I still find myself occasionally using the G7 which I still find telling but I am not sworn off Razer products as I was previously..  And no they didn’t pay me or make me say these things..

Now on to the original post ::  I was pretty frustrated and angry when I initially wrote this.  The tone is a lot harsher than it should be and for that I apologize, but the message is still basically what I want it to be..

As I have said previously, I’m a pretty hard core Logitech fan.  I use a lot of their hardware, and am always very happy with it..  I have used several Logitech mice in my day (corded and cordless) and up until fairly recently was using a Logitech G7.   The G7 is one of their cordless gaming mice and I have used it for a while.   I really like it, it’s a wonderful mouse and I highly recommend it.  My only complaint being that I wish it had 2 thumb buttons instead of one.. that was it.. my only complaint..  I managed to break the mouse wheel on mine though due to my own stupidity and being a bit rough with it, so it was time to replace it..

A buddy of mine has a Razer mouse and loves it, so when I was at the store and saw the Ferrari of the Razer mouse line; the Mamba wireless gaming mouse — I went ahead and picked it up..

At $129.99 I expected this thing to perform like no other..  In fact, at twice the cost of my Logitech G7, I expected it to perform twice as well..  It came in a really nice box, with a lot of high and mighty claims on the box so I was thinking I had a winner..

Let me be clear here – this mouse is the biggest piece of shit, I have ever.. and I mean.. EVER used..

I have been struggling and fighting with it for a while now, it’s beyond the time for me to take it back or I would.   I’m going to compare it to the Logitech G7, which I now know to be a superior mouse in every way except possibly the three listed below which has nothing to do with how I use the mouse;

• Packaging: The Razer folks took some queues from Apple on this one, the unboxing of the mouse is actually really impressive.  They use very high quality packaging.  Nice job.  I mean the packaging was so nice, I still have it all..(that’s not normally for me.. I usually toss the box asap)
• Dual Modes: The mouse can be used both in cordless or corded modes.  That’s a nice innovation and frankly I think all mice should adopt this.  Again.. Nice job guys.. I seriously like this and hope all mice do this in the future.. Quick! Patent it!
• 5600 DPI: The mouse has a very high resolution so I’ll throw this in as a plus but I never used it.. Frankly 5600 is way too high to be useful in my FPS games.. It’s twitchy as hell..  I usually used one click up from default.. (not sure what that resolution actually is)

Yeah.. that’s really it.. I’m trying to think of other nice things to say but I just can’t think of anything..  I have used this mouse from day one as a wireless replacement for my G7 and I expected it to perform as such.. Boy was I wrong;

• Battery Life: Their packaging states clearly that this mouse has a battery life of approximately 14 hours of continuous gaming or 72 hours of normal gaming usage.  Horse shit!  I mean it doesn’t even come remotely close to 72 hours of ANY kind of use.. 72 hours of sitting on the desk and it’s dead..  it doesn’t come close to 14 hours either..  If I get 8 hours of just “work use” I’d be happy..  14 hours of continuous gaming use?!  Bullshit..  This is just a marketing lie..  There is also only the one battery, and the only way to charge it is to put the mouse on the stand.   Fail.The G7 comes with two batteries, and you charge them via a charging station thats plugged into a USB port..  One G7 battery lasts a full day of constant gaming..  I would have to change the battery every day, but it takes a second to eject the old, and insert the new and have the old one fully charged again in no time.   Win.
• Sleepy Mouse:  I have never had a mouse go to sleep as often nor as quickly as this one does.  If you stop using it for 30 seconds (or less sometims), it goes to sleep.   It then takes up to 30 seconds for it to recover, IF IT RECOVERS AT ALL!So you get up to go to the restroom.. Yeah mouse goes to sleep..  Getting a quick drink from the kitchen?  Yeah sleep mode..Most of the time when the mouse came out of its self imposed torpor the buttons would work but the laser optic wouldn’t — so you couldn’t move the cursor.   I would be forced to turn the mouse off via the switch on the bottom, then turn it back on and hope it woke up.  Sometimes it would.. sometimes it wouldn’t..  Fail.This was an extremely common occurance too, it really made me wonder if I had a broken mouse..The G7 never sleeps.. or if it is sleeping it wakes up the absolute instant you move it.. Win.
• Responsiveness: Their claim to fame on the box is that the Mamba has a 1ms response time!!!  Further stating that other mice have 2ms and others have 8ms.. *gasp*Again.. Marketing shit.  Frankly the response times of this mouse mean nothing..   I am not sure exactly how long it takes my eyes to observe a targer, decide to react, tell my hand to move and my finger to click, and my muscles to actually perform that action..  but I’m pretty sure the difference of 1 or 2 milliseconds wont make a difference.More over, due to internet latency all that speedy mouse shit is completely lost in the noise of the intertubes..Further more, due to the sleep issue from above and the fact that it would take up to 30 seconds to recover half the time the mouse seemed incredibly unresponsive..  Epic Fail.Again, the G7 which might be one of those “other” mice and have a 8ms poll .. Bit it always performs perfectly.  And using it I still come in first on CoD Multiplayer more times than not.  Win.

Mouse Suicide!

I can go on.. The form factor took me a little getting used to but it wasn’t bad..  The clicks sound good and feel good, and the mouse wheel is okay if a little “mushy”.. (personal preference)  But its performance as a mouse left me wanting..  A lot.. And often..  The simple fact is the Mamba is extremely unreliable and quirky.. It may work fine as a corded mouse, but as a cordless it’s almost worthless..

On one of the forums I visit they suggested I update the firmware of the mouse to see if that helps..  So I did:  At which point my Mamba committed suicide.

Yeah not kidding.  (Firstly; why the hell does my mouse have a firmware?!  It’s a mouse!! )  I installed their firmware update software, followed their instructions to the letter.. And for my trouble got a paper weight.   The firmware updater erased the mouses brain completely, started its bootloader process then stopped working..  Now it doesn’t even work as a mouse and nothing I do will fix it..  The best part is, there is no hardware reset.

Seriously?! I mean I thought it was telling before that I was forced to leave my broken G7 on my desk for when the Mamba decided to go off into the weeds, but now its completely shit the bed and I’m forced to use the G7 entirely..

I can’t tell you how unhappy this makes me.. I’m so entirely and completely dissatisfied with this piece of hardware.. I’m seriously considering boxing it up and just sending it back to them with a letter to their president..  If this is the quality of their hardware, I will never ever buy a Razer product again.. Ever..  More over I will tell people of my experiences with it.. Ala this blog post, my forums and others..

At this point as my last ditch effort I have created a ticket with their technical support in the hopes that I get some help, but I’m willing to bet I wont get a response.   I also plan to call them tomorrow and see if I can get this straightened out.. I’m sure there is some way to reset the darn thing and I just don’t know how..   But again my hopes aren’t high..  I also seriously doubt the firmware update will fix the other issues this mouse seems to be plagued with..

I really wish I could write this as a personal letter to Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff..  He’s the president and co-founder of Razer and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t make excuses for the experiences I have had..  So.. Mr. Krakoff, this is to you..

Your company  missed the mark by a mile on this one..  Now lets see what your customer service department does..  This can still be a complete win for your company if you do the right thing here..  Good customer service can still save my opinion of you, but at this point I’m frustrated with the Mamba to the point of not wanting it any more..

I’ll keep ya’ll posted.

Day 2 — Razer Phone Technical Support — (888) 697-2037

Razer email support did reply within the 24 hour period.. The response seemed somewhat canned but did ask relevant questions so it was just a way to start the ball rolling..  I wanted faster results so I decided to call..

It took me ages to find the damn phone number..   It isn’t on their website at all.. I had to get it off a forum where someone else did a bunch of research to get it..

Bob answered the call and asked me my name… I told him and at the same time told him that I thought this mouse was a hunk of junk and it was also extremely frustrating and hard to find a phone number for them..

He then mumbled ” ‘ats by design ” prior to asking at normal volume; “What phone number can you be reached at if we get disconnected..”

I stopped him and said “Wait, did you just say thats by design?”  He said “no no I asked for a phone number to reach you at..”.. what a tool.. I’m not deaf..

I’m using a stereo headset to make the call so I can hear you in both ears with perfect clarity..  I know what you said..   You should never say something like that to a customer, even if its true — which apparently it is..

Bob seemed nice enough if maybe a little snarky.. But as a Razer T1 Support monkey, I could tell he was just browsing the web looking for solutions and was out of his depth..

At one point he had me completely remove the drivers for it, then had me try to update the driver via the device control panel, to the driver installer.. Not the driver itself, but to the installer..   I told him that this wouldn’t work and why — he seemed completely confused and put me on hold..

I got put on hold 3 times over the course of the call, each hold period got progressively longer while he researched solutions.. (read the internet, or went to ask someone..etc..  I know how our support monkeys work..)

Later in the call I casually asked “So do you guys get a lot of support calls?”  He said “No not really.. “  I said, “Thats cause the phone number is so hard to find.. thats by design right?” to which he stated.. “Thats right! Its what we hope for…”

… Sure.. why bother supporting your products…  I can’t believe you admitted that..  Saying things like that to a customer can get you fired..

Bob of T1 support knew nothing about this product or how to support it other than what he could read.. After 35 minutes on the phone with him he admitted that “he might actually have to escalate this call to T2″..  Stressing the word actually, as if he was shocked.. I wasn’t..

In my own testing of the product prior to calling I did more trouble shooting and research than he did ..

At 42 minutes he came back and asked “Does the mouse light up?”  .. No it doesn’t.. The lights stopped working the instant the bootloader firmware update failed.. I’m pretty sure I mentioned that early in the call, but maybe not.. I was thinking it if nothing else..

To which he said; “Okay we are done.. we have to get you a new mouse!”  I’m thinking, Yeah.. I knew this yesterday.. I certainly knew it 45 minutes ago..

So now I’m supposed to wait for RMA notice in the email..

Day 2 + 45 minutes — Razer Email Technical Support — RMA’ing this thing

So I got the email pretty much as soon as I hung up the phone..  I have filled it out and returned it..  One thing they wanted was proof of purchase.. well.. I have the thing don’t I?  I have all the packaging too..

I stated on the phone that I didn’t have that so I’m going to assume for the time being that it will be okay..

So far I’m not blown away by customer support here..  It was painful to find and the person I found wasn’t all that helpful..

Lets see if they will RMA it without proof of purchase..

Day 2 + 3 hours — Razer RMA Process

Fail.  It appears they are refusing to RMA this defective piece of crap without proof of purchase.   I have the product in its full packaging, with the Fry’s Electronics label on the front.. but I don’t have a receipt thus they are saying:

1. They can’t verify that the product was purchased from an authorized seller of Razer products.
2. Can’t verify that it wasn’t previously “used”, it isn’t “counterfeit”, and not “gray market goods”.
3. Can’t verify that the product isn’t “defective”.
4. Can’t verify that the unit is still within the warranty period.

Wow..

1.  The product was purchased from Fry’s Electronics in Austin Texas.  I still have the packaging, and at this point I have put the mouse back in the box entirely..  There is a label on the front that is the Fry’s label.. I’m pretty sure their authorized to sell Razer products cause they have a lot of it..  So this is a BS excuse.

2.  I gave you the serial number of the product in the RMA request.  With that you should know if the product has been previously used, or if its counterfeit.. You should also know to which country the product was initially shipped..  Again.. BS.

3.  I can 100% guarantee you the product is defective.. Your software made it so..  That’s the whole point of this attempted RMA..

4.  Your website states that the Razer Mamba has a warranty of 2 years.  Since it was unveiled to the world at CES in Jan of 2009, I’m pretty sure we are still win the warranty period..

This was a canned response letter and is very likely the first thing they do..   Deny first..

Never mind that their product is BROKEN DUE TO THEIR SOFTWARE..  Yeah you heard me.. THEY BROKE IT.. Their update software killed my product, but its my fault and I’m just out the money and now the mouse..

So apparently the only thing I did wrong was to buy a Razer product..

I could be coming away saying; “Wow, I didn’t really like the mouse but their customer support was excellent.. they treated me really well and took care of me.. I’d do business with them again..”

Or, I could be coming away saying; “Wow.. what a bunch of asshats.. I will never ..ever.. ever.. buy from them again.. and now I’m going to tell everyone I know not to.. ”

Based entirely on the experience I’m having, its clear to me they want me to do the second..

More as it happens..

Aion Online

I have played a lot of MMO’s in my time.. I feel I have a pretty good handle on the genre and have a very good idea of what makes a game good, and what makes a game bad.  Both in terms of what I personally feel, and as well as taking a broader view as a whole.  I can readily recognize why one game or another may not appeal to me, but be appealing to others.

What’s interesting is that I find that as time has gone on I have had to lower my expectations because none of contemporary games are ever as good as the now lofty memories of the games of old..

I fully realize that it’s not fair of me to compare a modern game to the memory of a previous game.  A memory full of good times, good people and fun events.  Memories that I generally cherish in some way, oh and there was a game involved too..

Aion Online is the first game in a long time that actually holds up under this scrutiny..  I was shocked..

Generally I use three games as my virtual yard sticks;  Ultima Online, because it was basically the first and implemented many things correctly, and many more incorrectly.  Everquest, again because it was ground breaking and a first but also because many of the things that made it most memorable are absolutely horrible by todays standards.  Ah memories.  And finally World of Warcraft because it’s everything that Everquest wasn’t — including good in some cases.  I played all three of those games for at least more than 2 years.. Five in the case of EQ, and am still playing WoW as I type this though I can honestly say that I dread it at times..

Aion Online might find itself added to that yardstick for comparison to future games..

Initially I was a bit horrified by the notion of a JRPG style game.. The very thought of a game in which the women were high pitch voiced busty school girls with bobbed hair and the men where androgynous she-males wielding swords you would otherwise need a forklift to move didn’t exactly excite me.. Still doesn’t to be honest, but that’s not what Aion is..

While I have seen a few extremely improbable swords the rest of the game isn’t bad at all..   The JRPG aspect is fairly minor all things considered and the game itself is beautiful and full of depth.

The game itself isn’t super innovative in that they really have only one thing that other games don’t have and thats flight..  Their flight model is really great and does a lot for the game once you figure it out.  Flight has two modes;  Flying and Gliding.  When you glide, you have a chance of finding thermals and can soar just like a bird!   The only down side to flight is that no matter how you go about it you can only do it for so long bfeore you have to rest..

Everything else is what you would expect, but done very well.. The game engine works well, if maybe a tad laggy from time to time and of course looks fantastic as it’s based on the crysis engine..

My only true concern at this point is the end game.. It touts a brand new end game that they are calling PVPVE.. which is code for PVE while some one ganks you..  I’m not fooled..  But at the same time I havent’ experienced it yet.. Maybe its good..

I’ll have to wait and see..