A Lord Of Time And A Game Of Thrones

 Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big Doctor Who fan. I grew up watching the old BBC episodes on PBS with my grandmother and loved every minute of it. Of course I had a couple of favorite Doctors. I really liked John Pertwee and adored Tom Baker. With the new Doctor Who episodes I love the writing and the actors they chose to play The Doctor are great. I was hesitant at first about Matt Smith because he was so young, but I gave him a shot. He did not disappoint me. I found myself liking him a great deal and he clearly loves his role. The new season of Doctor Who has started with a bang (no pun intended) with scary monsters known as The Silence. You forget about them as soon as you're not looking at them, which brings up the question how do you fight a big scary monster that you can't even see? The Doctor and his gang figure it out eventually, and it's a hell of a ride to get there. Of course there are even more questions that are pertinent to the main story of this season, but the writers aren't going to tell us just yet. We have to keep watching to find out. Personally, I would really like to know who River Song actually is to the Doctor and I'm hoping they'll give us that this season rather than all the teasing hints from the previous seasons. I'm definitely enjoying trying to find out.
 Then there's Game Of Thrones. I love the books and it's been insanely frustrating to wait for the next book A Dance With Dragons, but apparently it's being released (FINALLY!!) in July. So while I wait for July to get here, HBO has created the show to tide all of us Game Of Thrones fans over. My initial reaction was I loved it. It seems that everything has been done to keep the show as true as possible to the books, right down to the sly intrigue and carefully picking the cast to portray the various characters. For me, this is especially true with Sean Bean as Eddard (Ned) Stark and Maisie Williams as Arya Stark. Those characters are brought to life vividly by their fantastic acting. This is true of the rest of the cast as well and it's quite clear that they were well chosen. It's amazing seeing the various places in the Seven Kingdoms Of Westeros spring from the books onto television. The writing and the acting are brilliant. I found myself remembering why favorite characters were my favorites.  I'm genuinely enjoying it immensely.
 So my weekends are filled with Doctor Who and Game Of Thrones, which I enjoy watching. If you love great story, adventure, and great acting, you'll enjoy them too. 

Portal 2 Worth All The Hype

 Is Portal 2 worth all the hype? The answer is a resounding yes! Valve really did their homework on making the sequel to Portal fun and interesting. Portal was one of the first person games that I could play because the camera didn't bob around and make me feel nauseous. I was pleased to see that the camera angles are excellent in first person once again and don't have that wobbly bobbing effect that always makes me ill.
 There are new items in the game like hard light bridges, aerial faith plates, and propulsion gel. Each item is introduced carefully, allowing the player to become familiar with the items and how to use them. The puzzle rooms are amazingly designed, and while one puzzle may seem obvious to one person, it may not to another. There's no hard and fast learning curve with the difficulty levels of the puzzles and with the voice of GlaDos pouring often hilarious insults at you in a sing song computer voice make it entertaining.
 The humor in Portal 2 is perfectly dark with great comedic timing and terrific voice acting especially from Stephen Merchant as Wheatley. You will often find yourself chuckling, but also find yourself having that unsettling feeling throughout the story as it progresses. The main story for Portal 2 is longer than the first one, and perhaps even better which is a great thing for a sequel game.
 After you are done with the main story, you can play a co-op multiplayer stand alone story play through of the game featuring two droids Atlas and Peabody who are sent testing for GlaDos and the puzzles rely on them working well together as a team. This mode is a lot of fun with well balanced and greatly constructed puzzles.
 Valve has outdone themselves with Portal 2, with great puzzles, game play, and story. If you haven't picked up Portal 2 yet, you definitely should. It promises a great gaming experience for old and new Portal fans alike. This is definitely a game that any gamer worth his or her salt should have in their collection. 

An Open Letter To Parents Over Bulletstorm And Multimedia In General

 Apparently, there are a lot of you parents out there who are up in arms over the video game Bulletstorm because of the violence in it. It's all over the news and there are so many complaints about the dangers to your children. Being a parent myself, I can understand the concerns, but this video game is clearly not for children. Yes, children will try to be sneaky and try every trick in the book, but a good parent knows that and will handle any situation like that if it comes up with their kids. As for the rest of you parents who are so quick to blame everyone else but yourselves, pay attention.
 Parents, it's time to take back the reigns and BE A PARENT. Stop blaming everything on the various forms of media, especially video games. If you're not comfortable with the themes in a video game, film, or book and you're of the opinion it's not alright for children, then discuss that issue with your kids. I talk with my daughters all the time about what they read, see, or watch. Know why? Because as a parent that's MY JOB. It's no one else's.
 Yes, Bulletstorm is violent, but it's not meant for kids and frankly if you're a parent allowing a small child to play this video game or even considering it, then the fault is your own, not the video game industry. In general, stores and the video game industry themselves are fairly good about making sure that minors are not able to purchase the games with an adult rating, but the bottom line is that you as the parents are ultimately responsible for what your children do.
 And before any of you try to tell me oh you can't watch your kids every minute and know what they do, let me just tell you that's a load of crap meant to try and shift blame rather than take full responsibility for your inactions as a parent. While you can not watch your kids every minute of the day, you CAN talk to them about their day, have open discussions with them about the decisions they make and that you make for them as a parent, and you can be an active parent.
 It is not fair to constantly blame multimedia for being inappropriate for children and then punishing them for it. Your job as the parents is to deem what is appropriate or inappropriate for your children and censor accordingly. Stop expecting everyone else to do that for you and stop taking a back seat to parenting. THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS and the only one who can really protect your children is YOU. It's time to stop playing the blame game and actively and consistently do your job as parents. 

Dragon Age 2 Impressions

 I finished Dragon Age 2 and let's just say I am feeling conflicted. I absolutely loved Origins and Awakening. The story was well thought out and throw in the factor of every choice you made had a consequence of being good, evil, or in a gray area, it really made you pay attention and think about what you wanted to do throughout the story line. There was also more to explore on the map, and there was some depth to the design, such as the forests of Ferelden, the Dalish elves camp, and Orzammar.
 I was extremely excited about Dragon Age 2 and even got the signature edition. You get a lot of great items and cool downloadable content like The Black Emporium shop and The Exiled Prince quest. However, playing Dragon Age 2 I couldn't help but notice a lot of glaring flaws throughout it with the battle system and with some of the map designs. There are also for me, some issues with parts of the story and this does include some of Hawke's story.
 First, let me start with why I had a problem with Hawke's story. There are parts of it that seem rather pointless, as if Hawke is going through the motions and not really driven the way the hero was in Origins and Awakening. There's a lack of intensity.  There is also a glaring lack of tough choices. I love a great story and with Origins and Awakening, there were choices that could be made that would affect the story, take it down a different path, and everything you decided had consequences. With Dragon Age 2, it seems the story was only written one way and no matter what the player does or decides, they become the Champion the same way and go through the same events. It falls flat when you think about the intricacies and plot twists of the previous two games.
 I did like the interactions with the members of your party and there were even characters I genuinely liked. I found that my top three were Varric, Fenris, and Isabela. Hawke has a voice, so some of these interactions had a little more emotion to them, but frankly it seemed like the companions were far more interesting and witty. Even their quests and stories were more interesting to me. There was one part of Hawke's story that really had me going and to the person who wrote that, I say great job. As for the rest, it just felt dull. Sure, the ending has a fantastic pivotal point to the story line, but it felt like a chore to get to it at certain points in the game.
 Overall, I had no problem with the battle system. It was much easier to navigate, the action is fast and fluid, and the AI is pretty spot on when it comes to the other party members, making for a pretty exciting furious battle. Yet, there was a problem. Let me be clear with all my friends who told me I could change the difficulty setting to casual if a battle was too hard, I DID. I then tried various tactics and party set ups and got annihilated eight times or more. I'll give everyone a moment to let that sink in. Now, maybe it's a crazy concept, but the casual setting on a video game means you don't have lots of dead party members and game over screens. Yes, it's still a battle, but not quite so difficult. When a battle is hard on the EASY setting, that's a huge problem for me. Factor in the 30 second cool down timer for healing potions, and healing spells, it borders on ridiculous.
 While I understand that the gist of this idea was it makes you plan out and think carefully about strategies for quests, boss battles, and random fights a 30 second heal timer does not work. I could understand having a timer, but 30 seconds can make or break a quest or story oriented battle in Dragon Age 2. I played as a rogue for the first play through, and I found myself kiting things a hell of a lot waiting for the timer to be up and hoping I wouldn't die before I could heal. Needless to say, it got incredibly frustrating quite a few times!
 Finally, we have the sheer laziness of the map and dungeon designs. It was as if there was just one prototype for everything when it came to the buildings in Kirkwall. The "poor house" design, and the "rich mansion" design came across as bland and was a telling sign of how rushed this game was. There's also one map for the sewers, the Deep Roads, one mine, one mountain, and one cave. You basically go back and forth with five different locations on the world map.  Compared to the other maps in the Dragon Age games, this is shameful. The map is ridiculously tiny, but it's as if they were lazy and couldn't be bothered with making the locations stand out and be unique from each other.
 I liked Dragon Age 2, but I didn't love it the way I did Origins and Awakening. I can honestly say, it's a good game, but not a great one. There's too many predictable points in some of the story telling and it's quite obvious to see where certain things were rushed especially with certain cut scenes where the characters were blinking in and out of frame. I can not in good conscience give Dragon Age 2 a stellar review as an amazing game, because it isn't. Believe me, that kills me because I absolutely love the Dragon Age series, but with that many flaws, it's not worth full price.

Little Big Planet 2 Bigger, Better, More Fun

 I love Little Big Planet, so of course I was extremely excited about Little Big Planet 2. It definitely delivered on its promise of being bigger, better, and more fun than the first. You can add your first save data to the sequel, so you have all your previous costumes and stickers. There's even more costumes to find in the sequel that are cute and fun. One of my favorites was the disco costume that changed colors as your sack person moved.
 The game play is great, and the controls are definitely easy to handle. There are even new inventions to use like the Robobun, a giant rabbit you can ride that can do an attack called Slam Attack that will smash your enemies to bits. This is especially fun in a stage called Full Metal Rabbit, (Yes I laughed when I saw that title) where you wreak havoc on the baddies with Robobun.
 The creativity of the various stages in story mode is amazing. I was delighted to see an homage to old school video games in one, then pleasantly surprised to see a tribute to old school pin ball machine games in another. The story is simple like the first, but it's fun and it had the added appeal of having an entire Sackbot army (my love of robots continues!) at my beck and call. There are some stages towards the end that are a tad tricky and I admit, I did become a little frustrated at how often my little Sack Person met a nasty demise. The worst ones seemed to be the deaths by fire or bombing. However, I did get the hang of it and managed to finish the stage and finish story mode with my Sack Person relatively undamaged.
  There's even more to do, after story mode. There are various versus levels with games like Space Pool, Races, and puzzle games  that you can play with others online or you can play your own. You can also explore the different stages that other players have created, try them out, review them, and rate them. There was one that I really liked that was an animal safari, and another that I loved that was a water park theme. My favorite was the Tron themed one with light cycles that you could race. It was a great stage to play and I was impressed that someone created that. There's so much to explore there, you will never run out of things to do on Little Big Planet 2.
 If you're feeling creative, you can even make your own stages to share with others. There's lots to choose from, and you can decide the difficulty level of your creations, and name your planet. You can offer up prizes for people who try out your stages like stickers or costumes. The possibilities are endless and more importantly, FUN.
 This game has all the bells and whistles, and I'm having such a great time playing it. Give it a try if you haven't already. It's definitely a game that should be in any game lover's collection. 

Ubisoft and Nintendo Wii Teamed Up For This?!

 Note: It seems Ubisoft is unhappy with all the attention the game We Dare is getting, but wasn't that the whole point of this game? They wanted to get everyone's attention and they got it. Now they have blocked all the Youtube ads here and have restricted it regionally to Europe. You can see the full ad here on this IGN article here: http://wii.ign.com/articles/115/1152147p1.html
So apparently in order to appear more "Grown Up" and "Adult Friendly" Ubisoft and Nintendo have come up with this new and improved way to completely traumatize and embarrass your children. Well let's face it, it's a new way to embarrass yourselves and other adults too.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having a good time with your friends, but did you see where the Wii controller goes during this little video? I don't see how shoving a controller down near your backside is a good idea considering the whole concept of germs and fellas, would you really want your Wii controller back after one of your buddies has shoved it down his pants? Or would you be totally happy with them putting the controller in their mouth which is also filled with lots of nasty germs?  Yeah, I didn't think so.
 Look Nintendo, I get it. You want to branch out, be an adult, and run with the big dogs, but there is so much wrong with the concept of this game. You can have an adult game that is fun and casual without resorting to sexual innuendo and open invitation to lines like, "Hey, we should play with my Wii! Literally." Never mind that the people in this video don't seem all that comfortable with this idea and the laughter sounds forced and awkward, and just think for one minute how many couples there are out there with a Nintendo Wii and then think about how many of them are married with children. Now think about the female significant others and really think about how many of them are going to go for this game. There it is, the realization that there are probably many women who would clock the crap out of their boyfriend/husband for even suggesting getting together for a healthy round of We Dare so you can shove a Wii controller down your pants and spank each other's bottoms. Hey in some circles, that's how people roll, but in others not so much.
 Ubisoft, there isn't even a need to help you. You should hang your head in shame, you know better. It's just one disappointment after another with you and whichever one of your brilliant guys thought this up, you really need to have a long talk with them. Granted the game is a measly twenty bucks, but come on for twenty bucks most people could go see a movie, something that doesn't require supremely bad hygiene habits with a video game controller and without all that awkward tension.
 Now after all that is said and done, I'm sure there are people who will buy this game. For those with children who do buy it, just make sure your kids aren't in the house and I mean the gone for the weekend to visit Grandma kind of not in the house. It's for the best, because as we all know there are just some things you can't unsee. 

Your Game Sucks Or Crowdstar Is Awful

 So yes, I admit I do play some of the games on Facebook. I have some favorites, (Bejeweled Blitz is at the top because of my love of puzzle games) and then there's some I just play once in a while just to help out my friends who play as in they need building material for a quest or they want to adopt a virtual pet. I sometimes get invites from friends to play a game and I will try it out to see how I like it. Some make it and others just aren't my thing, so they go to the deleted pile. This may also be why a lot of my friends ask me if I played this or that game. I guess basically it seems as if I play through the crap games so they don't have to.
 The games that seem to click with me are puzzle, tactics, animal/pets, or cooking oriented. I guess the appeal is (at least with puzzle games) is I can play a bit for five minutes in between commercials when I'm watching a show, because honestly, it gives me something to do before my show comes back on. The other side to it, is some of the games are genuinely fun and enjoyable to play.
 Then there's Crowdstar. What can be said about Crowdstar that isn't completely filled with every swear word possible? I tried out Happy Pets, I admit. Overall, I did like the game and the idea of adopting lots of cute virtual dogs and cats, but then you could adopt pets like jackalopes (rabbit with dear antlers), horses, and dragons. So it was interesting. However, after a while I found myself becoming bored with the tediousness of having to constantly feed my fake pets and not getting anything for it. Then of course there's the whole you have to buy Facebook Credits ordeal for any of the exclusive things such as pet dinosaurs. I found myself doing the bare minimum for the Happy Pets game and considering moving it to the deleted pile.
 A few days ago a friend of mine sent me an invitation to another Crowdstar game called It Girl. I tried it out and it was fun for about five minutes. Basically, your female avatar goes on shopping sprees and you have to find the best and hottest clothes. You also have to attend parties and have (I wish I was making this up) hotness showdowns with other girls in order to win money to spend on even more overpriced virtual couture clothing. Then, there was the quest to get a boyfriend. Once you get said boyfriend, there's a rigid rule of you have to kiss him every eight hours or he'll lose interest in you and dump you. Another way of keeping your boyfriend is you can buy him gifts, but here's the catch, all of them cost Facebook Credits. You can also get exclusive couture, but that too costs Facebook Credits, and then there's the exclusive stores you can shop at, but that also costs Facebook credits. Anyone else noticing the dirty money trail of greed going on here?
 After trying this game out, my overall impression of it was it's not good. Superficial nonsense aside, the game itself did not play well. There was constant lag, the game would freeze and the only way to solve the problem was to reload the page, and then there was the uneven battle system of the hotness showdowns. You could be completely ahead of a rival in hotness, clique size (yes, I'm sad to say your friends are referred to as a clique in this crapfest of a game), and (I wish I was making this up) closet size, and still lose. It's an understatement to say there were glitches and game issues.
 Apparently other people who played this game felt the same way and on Crowdstar's It Girl page under the Reviews tab, they voiced pretty much everything I had issue with in their reviews. There were one or two positive reviews here and there, but the overall consensus was that It Girl pretty much bit the big one. The next day, the reviews tab on the It Girl page is magically gone and Crowd Star is claiming that their game has five stars out of 120,604 reviews, all positive. Really? So rather than fix all the issues that the negative reviews brought to light, Crowdstar decides to prove that they're not only greedy money grubbing dirt bags, they decide to show that they're rotten liars too. Of course, there were lots of angry comments on their page for the It Girl game about how dishonest it was of them to do this. It also speaks volumes to me that there is no contact information whatsoever on any of the Crowdstar pages for their personal business page or for their games. There's a blatant absence of a phone number or valid street address. There isn't even a customer service feedback page anywhere. So it seems for all their so called stellar reviews the intent to perform fraud is blatantly there.
 I for one have already removed any Crowdstar games that were on my game list on my Facebook page and yes, this included the pile of dung that is the It Girl game. I am also posting this review because this is MY blog and this negative review they can not remove, and can not try to hide or lie about. Sure, it's just a Facebook game, but overall games are supposed to be fun and if you really gave a damn about making a good game Crowdstar, then you wouldn't take to these shady practices, now would you?
 I'm sure that they will continue down their greed laden path and keep ripping off everyone left and right in order to be the biggest and the best, but the people who are in the same frame of mind that I am, are not buying it. No matter how much you try to lie, cheat, and steal, you can not hide the truth about the kind of people and company you really are Crowdstar.