Battlefield: Bad Company

Although released about a year-and-a-half ago, Bad Company was a game that slipped under my radar. That changed due to the amount of fun I was having with Battlefield: 1943 and the fact that my son found it for $15, causing it to be a stocking stuffer this Christmas.

On the surface, Bad Company can get lost in the glut of all the other war based shooters, but there are a number of things that separate it from the pack, the biggest being the strength of its multiplayer. Twenty-four players on huge maps, great weapon variety, and wonderful vehicle fun. Bad Company sets the standard for destructible environments. Besides just looking really good, destruction is incorporated well into gameplay without overwhelming it. Some folks might feel only two game types - conquest (territories) & gold rush (siege) - but I would rather play these objective based games, polished and balanced to a tee, than endless varieties of slayer, populated by trash talking thirteen year-olds.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the single player experience. The plot is a simple one: the four team B-company fall upon a trail that appears to be leading them to a fortune in gold bullion - think of the film Three Kings without the political or moral overtones. In an age where every game is determined to be as epic and convoluted as possible, playing Bad Company was surprisingly refreshing. Instead of a silly plot, you get very well constructed levels and well paced gaming. Refreshing indeed.

Dead Rising - 7 Day Survivor

About a year and a half ago I used to play a game called Dead Rising that I thought I would make a run at getting all the achievements for - here's a link describing my run. A glitch ended my go at the 7 Day Survivor achievement which requires you to play the game for 14 hours without dieing or saving. With more than just myself using the X-Box in our house, the option of pausing the game to continue another day wasn't there. Well, yesterday I had the day off work, my son was at school, and my frustration with the game had subsided enough, so I made another go of it. And here it is.


So, if you're ever looking at an X-Box 360 gamer profile and want to get a measure of the level of obsessive behaviour of a particular gamer, just look for this achievement.

Assassin's Creed 2

This is a game I had asked for Christmas, but I couldn't wait any longer, and my son and I rented it to give it a go. The first Assassin's Creed received somewhat mixed reviews, but I for one greatly enjoyed it. Ubisoft Montreal was promising many improvements in the hype leading up to the sequel, which left me a bit concerned. I worried that the immersive world and unique game play that I loved would get lost in an attempt to reach a wider audience.

It turns out my worries were unfounded. Assassin's Creed 2 improves upon the original in every way without sacrificing in the least what made the original a great game. The core game, and story, is left intact, but is now surrounded by a much greater variety, not only in the missions, but in the game play too.

The core fighting mechanics are still the same where timing is at the essence of performing combinations and counter attacks, but they entered in a great many more moves, sneak attacks, and a whole armoury of weaponry. Being able to blend into the crowd is handled much more naturally without using a walk-real-slow button, and guards will no longer chase you simply for running to get to where you want to go. In addition, instead of improvements in weapon and armour being parcelled out, you can earn (or steal) money in the game and visit shops to get what you need.

The game play elements change up frequently with mission structure being modelled more after something like Grand Theft Auto. In addition there are tombs and catacombs to explore, taking full advantage of Assassin Creed's movement engine, with acrobatics that are reminiscent of Tomb Raider or Prince of Persia. The game even has DaVinci Code like moments with hidden glyphs and ancient puzzles to solve, and a simple sim game where you make improvements to your villa to help you earn more cash.

As much as I've enjoyed playing Grand Theft Auto IV the last little while, I think I like this one better. The game play is just as fun, the variety almost the same (the edge going to GTA), but for me what puts Assassin's Creed over the top is the detail and immersive feel of its world set in 15th century Italy. GTA has wonderful characters but it's dark, satiricaly, mood (although often hysterical) doesn't pull me in in the same way as Assassin's Creed's compelling, clever, story and historical detail.

Anyway, the game got returned today, unfinished, and I'm going to discipline myself to wait until Christmas to get to the end. Some things are worth savouring.

Balad of Gay Tony Downloaded

I got a short start on GTA4's Balad of Gay Tony today. My son also rented Borderlands which has him kinda hooked (actually it looks pretty cool), so it may be a bit before I can finish Gay Tony. I wanna finish Brütal Legend on brutal too. Hmmm, maybe I should just get back to the model ship.

Anyway, I've got a couple of trailers for Gay Tony here. The first is the original trailer for the game. The second is another (off colour) spoof TV show from the game. Enjoy.

Brütal Legend

After the brilliant Psychonauts, I had very high hopes for Tim Schafer's next outing, the recently released Brütal Legend. It's not like it's a bad game (I played the whole thing through, afterall, and plan on trying to complete it on the brutal difficulty setting), but after everything that was in Psychonauts, this one felt a little shallow.

You can still see it's a Schafer game. It's got his humour and quirky characters all over it. It also does the same thing as Psychonauts by disguising itself as one thing but delivering something else - I'm not sure how clever that is from the marketing perspective. Psychonauts appears a generic platformer that was actually a witting and engaging game. Brütal Legend disguises itself as a fairly mindless hack-and-slash that suddenly morphs itself into a real-time strategy game.

It's going to be interesting how this gets received. Fans attracted to a heavy metal themed hack-and-slash staring Jack Black may react rather negatively when they find themselves having to construct and organize siege weapons to attack the enemy stronghold. By the same token, RTS fans will likely be put off by the games shallow exterior, and depth of the RTS mode certainly doesn't compare to the more popular games out there in the genre anyway. There is a multiplayer mode that is just one-on-one RTS battles. I really can't see who will be playing this on-line a few months from now ... hard core Jack Black fans?

For myself, I'm not a hard core RTSer (the last RTS I played right through was StarCraft years ago) but I did enjoy the battles in this game. I certainly enjoyed it more than grinding through the repetitive side missions this game provides. That said, I know there isn't enough there to keep me interested for too long.

But perhaps I'm getting too down on it. It's fun, funny, and original - more than can be said for most games. The characters are well voiced and animated - even Ozzy Osborne as the "Guardian of Metal" whom you get to buy your upgrades from. The heavy metal themed world and creature design are certainly inspired, and there is enough depth in the RTS battles to keep me engaged without being overwhelmed. Overall, a fun time.

Blasts From The Past

A few weeks ago I posted my attempts to work around an error that was appearing on our XBox 360 - well, it was only temporary and a few days later I was forced to bite the bullet and send it in for repairs (though the thought of buying a new PS3 instead certainly crossed my mind). I gotta admit, the repair (sorry, replace) was done quickly and I had the machine back in a week. Though, I still have an issue with how fragile the dumb thing is in the first place.

Anyway, the week without the XBox got me digging out an older game to play. I dusted off the PS2 and plunked in Ratchet and Clank. I had so much fun that I thought I would make a post of some of my favourite games from the previous generation of systems.

Here they come. They're all great games, though I did order them from least to most favourite.

Resident Evil 4 - 2005 - GameCube

This game also came out for the Wii a year or so ago, and it is that version that I played most recently. I'm not a huge fan of the survival-horror genre (previous Resident Evil games left me a bit flat), but RE4 does separate itself in a number of ways.

It integrates the traditional clunky controls and limited inventory of a survival-horror game with a more fast paced shooter, and it works really well. You still can't run and shoot at the same time (which takes some getting used to) but that just adds to the tension - flight or fight, make a decision.

The level design is also varied with a variety of different game elements that combine together very well. If I have one gripe with the game, it's its overuse of quick-time elements during boss fights. I find these get very tedious, very fast. What I find particularly frustrating are bosses that can only be beaten by a particular, and obscure, pattern of button presses, usually requiring split second timing. In fact, one particular boss fight ended my experience with this game about 80% through. I just don't have anywhere near the patience for it.

What also separates RE4 is its quirky sense of humour. From the nonsensical merchants who appear out of nowhere to buy and sell stuff, to the hysterically atrocious dialogue, this game has its share of laughs.

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal - 2004 - PS2

When playing this game most recently, I was amazed at how many elements from it have made their way into modern games. Destructible cover - check, crazy gravity ala Mario Galaxy - check, skill point awards ala XBox360/PS3 - check.

I think Ratchet & Clank suffers a bit from looking so kid friendly that it isn't taken seriously by the more hardcore crowd, but the game is tight, fast, fun, and demanding - certainly more so than most of today's M-Rated shooters. The characters are memorable and funny, the voice acting solid as well as the animations. In addition, the game play, quite frankly, kicks ass. If you enjoy blowing the hell out of stuff, you really can't go wrong here.

Besides, how can you no enjoy a game that lets you turn your enemies into flaming ducks (yes, ducks on fire) that lay bouncing egg grenades? You heard me right!

Psychonauts - 2005 - XBox

I'm not sure you can find a game more original than Tim Schafer's Psychonauts. On the surface a kid friend adventure-platformer, it doesn't take long before you realize this is a darkly funny, high concept little game that can be devilishly challenging at times.

Let me set the scene. You play Raz, a ten year old who breaks into a summer camp for psychically gifted children that is, in reality, a military training facility for the next generation of super soldiers - the psychonauts. The majority of levels in this game take place in the psychic landscape that represent particular characters' minds, and considering that many of the characters are bat-s**t crazy, some of these levels are bizarre to say the least.

For example, in one level you enter the mind of a paranoid milkman whose true personality has been pushed back thanks to the efforts of the game's villain. Here a quiet suburban neighbourhood is twisted into a gravity defying pretzel where every hint that may lead you to the true milkman is guarded by barely disguised government agents whose superiors are a troup of girl scouts (cookies - milk - get it?).

In another level, a giant mutated fish is being controlled by another villain. Here the fish's mind is an urban metropolis populated (quite amusingly) by fish - Fishopolis. Raz becomes a giant, Godzilla like, interloper that must thrash his way through the city to confront the similarly sized villain in a building destroying show down. How the hell can that not be fun?

And it keeps going like this. I don't want to give too much away but the game truly blows me away when the minds of Raz and the chief villain mix together and the two must team up to defeat their own perceptions of their fathers. Man, Freud would have a field day!

Shadow of the Colossus - 2005 - PS2

As mentioned, I've saved the best for last. Shadow of the Colossus is easily one of my favourite games of all time. First of all, in my opinion, it is the most, drop dead, gorgeous game I have ever seen, and that includes high pixel count games of the 360 and PS3. I'm talking about more than resolution here. I'm talking about composition, texture, and colour. There is nothing that compares. Just the way the camera moves is stunning. It doesn't just simply hold the avatar in the center, but lets it drift left-right, up-down, and in-out as if somehow it knows what would compose a great shot. When I first saw video of the game play, I found it hard to believe I wasn't watching a humanly constructed cut scene. It's absolutely astounding to me as to how this was pulled off.

Of course, I wouldn't love the game just because it's beautiful. The game play is truly unique too. The game is one, big, pastoral world that you ride through facing barely an enemy. There is no level grinding or items to collect, but there are sixteen colossi hiding out there that you can locate with a magic sword that you happen to have stolen (the lead character is very much morally grey). Yes, that is all there is to the game, sixteen boss fights, but before you dismiss it as being too simplistic, just give it a try. The fights are epic, varied, and challenging. Each boss is its only little puzzle to solve. By the time I got to the end, I was still hungry for more, something I don't get from most games.

Grand Theft Auto 4

I'm a late comer to the GTA series. Despite the enormous popularity of GTA3 - San Andreas and Vice City, I didn't bring them into the house because I thought my kids were too young to be playing these games. With GTA4 I found out what I was missing.

The sandbox genre was basically defined with the GTA3 games, and the newest installment shows why Rockstar is still king of this mountain. First off, the world of Liberty City is huge! So huge the game provides you with a road map, including the subway routes and you actually will likely use the thing. We've seen huge sandbox worlds before, but never packed with the level of detail that we have here.

Second, story and character are fantastic. Great voice acting and character animation combine with a strong script to create characters and scenes that are memorable. When you care about the characters, you care about what happens to them, and this game makes you care.

Third, I love the dark, satirical, mood of the game. One major component of this is the radio, television and Internet media that are created just for the game (yes, you can watch TV and serf the Web in the game if you like). The radio programs and ads are particularly biting, and often drop dead hysterical. The abundant, and interconnected, media also serves to add to the depth of the world, making the whole experience more immersive. For example, you'll see a billboard for a play, later hear a commercial for the play, then, while listening to the news, hear an interview with one of the performers in the play. This all happens seamlessly and naturally.

But the best part of GTA 4 is the gameplay. Cover based combat seems all the rage in shooters right now, and I think GTA4 provides the best working model for it yet, creating a fast and exciting shooting experience. But beyond that, GTA4 provides so many different elements that listing them all would be a chore. There's the obvious gun fights and car chases, but it also varies from bowling, to racing, to dating, to just going drinking with your buddies (but then whistle for a cab to take you home). For goodness sakes, the game provides you a button to flip from high to low beams on your headlights. As far as variety in the missions (including the optional ones) little beats this game.

The downloadable content is even worth talking about. The Lost and Damned expansion gives about an additional 10 to 15 hours of game play that is of as high quality as the original, creating a story that weaves in and out of the story and characters of the original. And out today is the second expansion, The Balad of Gay Tony, which also looks amazing.

GTA4 provides a package that can't be beat and is easily one of my favourite games that I've played in the last year.

Battlefield 1943

The first plus on the side of this game is that it is only 1200 Microsoft points (about $17) on Xbox Arcade. For that you get a well balanced WWII, multi-player, shooter. The game is set in the Pacific. You play either the US or Japan in a battle to control the islands. There are only three maps, but the maps are huge and sprawling. Although there is only one game type (well two, if you count the dog-fight game) the gameplay is varied giving you lots to do while trying to take control of several strategic points on the map.

The variety is accomplished in a number of ways. There are three classes that play differently, a number of drivable vehicles(jeeps, tanks, boats, and fighter planes), anti-aircraft guns, machine gun nests, and the ability to control bombing runs. There are up to a dozen people on a side, giving players the opportunity to support their team's efforts in a variety of different ways depending upon their own style and preferences. Gameplay is fast and fairly quick to pick up with no need to memorize "power spots" on the maps as the only weapons you get are the ones provided with your class (which you are free to change mid game). There are no hidden power weapons.

Graphics are adequate and the sound design is great (the sound of fighters screaming overhead will make you duck in your living room). This certainly doesn't have all the game play in a full-priced game, but what it does provide is slick and fun.

Red Faction: Guerilla

A few months back I made a post celebrating cracking 10000 achievement points on the X-box 360. In that document I reviewed the top eleven games that contributed to my point score. I had a such fun with it, that I thought I might put in reviews of any games in which I achieved at least half of the achievement points for. At least you'll know they held my interest.

In the time since the cracking 10000 post, I've played three games in which I earned at least half the achievement points: Red Faction: Guerilla, Battlefield 1943, and Grand Theft Auto 4. I got some catching up to do, so here is the first one.

Red Faction: Guerilla

Red Faction is a third person, sandbox, shooter where you play Alec Mason, a miner in the future who joins his brother on Mars. Things go bad pretty quick as Mars is run by corrupt conglomerates (are there any other kind) and the military who descend upon the brothers suspecting them of being in the Free Mars rebel group. Well, needless to say the brother gets killed and Alec is left with the motivation necessary to take it to the Mars overlords.

The hook of Red Faction is that it lets you run amoke with the ability to completely flatten almost every structure in the game and, quite frankly, that turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun. The down side is that the price of having fully destructable environments is that those same environments are pretty drab and uninspired. There's nothing of that feeling of being sucked in and wowed by the world that you get from a game like Farcry 2 or Grand Theft Auto IV (review pending). Similarly, the story and characters also lack any spark of life that might actually make you care about them.

That all said, the gameplay is a hoot. Besides blowing stuff up but good (you are provided with a heady arsenal of goodies for this), the combat is fast paced, varied, and satisfying. As is typical of a sandbox game, you are provided with numerous missions that you get to choose from and there is enough variety and challenge in those missions to keep the game fun right through to the end. Because of my lack of investment in the story, getting to that end is less satisfying than it otherwise would be, but the ride is a fun one.

The surprise for me in this game was its multiplayer, something I normally am not that attracted to, but here ended up eating a significant amount of my time. There is a great collection of different game types, taking full advantage of the destructable environments, and there is a wonderfull variety in the maps, ranging from close and personal to large and sprawling. Besides the sheer variety of weapons, things are spiced up even further with backpacks that bestow abilities upon the wearer: jetpacks, cloaking, damage boost, speed, etc. The end result is a face paced, multiplayer, package in which I find a heck of a lot more play value than games like Gears of War or Halo.

Fixing The X-box

Microsoft's engineering prowess (or lack there of) caught up with us last night and the X-box 360 shut down with blinking red lights of doom and a cryptic E-73 error. The machine is about three years old (no longer under warranty) and to get it fixed, we need to send it into Microsoft and they will send us another machine - cost: about $130. Really makes one wish one bought a PS3, a far better built piece of hardware (and they're only $299 now!).

Anyway, rather than rush to send it in, I did a little sleuthing to try and find what what this E-73 error is all about. I found that the most common source of the error is a solder joint that has come lose, usually involving the ethernet port. It's interesting to note that with ANY other machine, if something like the ethernet port goes, the rest of the machine will work fine. It doesn't just give up.

What's weird is that there exists a bizarre, temporary, fix for the problem.

>Take a couple of small sticks (like Q-tips or toothpicks) and use them to prevent the two fans at the back from turning.
>Turn on your X-box and wait for it to overheat (takes about 10 minutes, which is pretty sad)
>The machine will shut itself down now. Disconnect it for half an hour or so to wait for it to cool off.
>After half an hour, turn the machine back on and it should boot up normally.

It should be emphasised that forcing a machine to overheat is not generally a good idea and the only reason I did this is because the warranty had expired anyway. What's weird is that this works at all. How does overheating the machine fix a solder joint? Obviously, it doesn't, but I suspect that somehow the error state gets reset through this process allowing the machine to boot normally. The fact that it runs normally now begs the question, is there really anything physically wrong with it at all or does some stupid piece of software just thinks something's wrong?

Ah, Microsoft. Why do we all keep you in business?

Grand Theft Auto IV - The Balad of Gay Tony

I've been playing this Grand Theft Auto a lot of late. There is a new expansion coming out for it later this month and this is one of a number of promotional trailers. I do enjoy the game's satiric/dark humour, though it is for a mature audience.

Needless to say, I'm eagerly looking forward to this.

Model Ship Update: Fortopgallant Sail

I got in a little more work and finished the next sail. Next comes the three matching sails on the mainmast and the sails are done. That will be followed by some additional rigging (braces, course sheets, and maybe tacks), then the finishing details: pennants, flags, anchors, etc..

I've got to get down to the hobby store and buy more line and cleats. I could see that the kit didn't supply enough line (I ran out with the standing rigging too). Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a reasonable match. Also, last time I was there, they were out of cleats. I may have to get them to order some for me.



Mike

Summer of Projects That Couldn't Be Ignored

Well, the summer's almost at an end and it certainly was a busy one around the cottage. It seemed like all we did was work on projects. Unfortunately, all of them were one's that couldn't be ignored. Some weren't too big: the septic line had to be repaired after being smashed by a fallen tree, and we had to buy a new toilet.

A new shed turned out to be the biggest project. In a previous post I explained that what I was using as a shed (an old, unusable, outhouse) had also been hit be a tree and needed to be replace. I decided to build something that I could also use for storage (we definitely needed the space) and built one 8 feet by 12 with full 8 foot ceilings. I took advantage of the concrete pad that was the foundation of the outhouse but put in additional footings for the bigger footpad.

The height and size got some of Deb's family saying it resembled a church. My brother-in-law even made a sign reading, "St Mike's Cathedral". Smartass! but I kept the sign and hung it inside. Actually, I can't be too upset with the guy because he supplied me with the windows which have been under his cottage for years. They actually came from a store that used to be on the island decades ago. What I like about them is that they hinge up. I had to build the frame for the sashes, but that wasn't a big deal, and the view out them isn't too bad either.

The design for the shed was my own. The large double doors at the front were built simply out of left over sheathing and strips of B-grade spruce. There is still some trim to be done, and the whole thing needs to be stained, but I think that's going to have to wait until next year as the next project cannot be put off any longer.

The same pair of trees that took out the septic line and outhouse also clipped the corner of the cottage. Right away, I used some roofing paper to patch over the damage, but I needed to get this fixed properly before the summer was over. Right after I finished with the latches on the shed doors this morning, I moved over to begin to fix the eave where the tree hit. I have a picture of the repair on the right. It turned out not to be such a big deal once I cut enough away to allow me to nail up some new wood. Obviously, this will get stained sometime, but no time soon.

The kids and I also began ripping off the old shingles. The place was due for reshingling anyway, so we figured we'd get that done at the same time as the repair. We concentrated on the area that took the damage from the tree, but we plan on tearing this side of the roof down to the first layer of shingles and then shingling on top of that layer. We won't have to rip off old shingles for most of the rest of the cottage because we had built a 400 foot addition 16 years ago, so that has only a single layer of shingles on top. We'll just shingle new overtop of the old here. I hope to get the whole thing done this week, just in time to head back to school where I'll get to relax. ;-)

Mike

Model Ship Update: Fortopsail

Did pretty good this week.

The first picture shows the fortopsail is now on the ship. I was able to attach the reefing lines without glue. In fact, once I put my head to it a bit, it was rather easy to knot the lines into the sail. I wish I had done the same with the forsail. There is still a bit of squaring to do (the braces have yet to be attached), so hopefully I'll be able to get all the yards parallel.

The second picture shows one of the forward peg boards, which is now almost half full. I've decided to only coil every second line (the other just being made fast and cut off) to keep this area from getting too messy. Picture three is the back side of the fortopsail.


In picture four you can see the plans showed for lines to run forward from the sails. These lines are bogus and wouldn't exist on a real ship. They would always bug me so I scrapped them and replaced them with reefing tackle, which weren't in the plans but do actually exist. One of the reefing tackles is closest to the camera in picture five.

Finally, picture six is just a deck level view looking forward towards the forcastle. I'm pretty much working aft with the rigging, so there shouldn't be any future lines in this view, unless I decide to put tacks on the sails (something else that is missing from the plans). I haven't decided on that one yet.

Cheers

Mike

Model Ship Update: Forsail

The forsail is now on - five more sails to go. I used glue to attach the reefing lines that you can see in the first picture (the multiple short lines hanging from the middle of the sail). This turned out to be a mistake because, as you can see, it stained the sail. I should have made a test first. Anyway, I'll be using knots to attach them from now on.

In the second picture you can see how various lines are fastened at the bottom of the mast. The kit's instructions had a circle of eyes attached to the deck, but I went with cleats on the mast. I'm glad I did.

The third and fourth pictures show the detail of where the yard fastens to the mast under the fortop. It's worth noting that there are still some more lines to come through this area once the fortopsail and the forgallantsail (the sails above this one) are put on. There are still several more control lines (sheets, braces and buntings) to be attached to the forsail, but that will come later.



Mike

Story Telling - Valve Style

This may be me drifting into Half Life withdrawal waiting, apparently indefinitely, for episode 3 to be released, but I thought I would put this 10 minute clip of the beginning of episode 1.

This game is now three years old, but it still demonstrates what amazing story tellers and game developers the folks at Valve are. Realize that after the first two and a half minutes, this stops being a cut scene and turns into gameplay, and there are no more cut scenes in the whole game! Within the next three minutes you are re-introduced to four characters and, through deft touches of humour and tenderness, are made to care for each of them. Hell, in most games I couldn't give a rat's ass about about any of the characters after playing the game for hours.

Not to mention the technical achievement of the interactions between Alyx, Dog and the constantly moving, first-person, camera that represents Gordon (not to mention with their environment too). In addition, the subtlety in the animations of Alyx and Dog are better than in most games' cut scenes, and remember, this is mostly gameplay.

Anyway, watch and judge for yourself.

Mike

Model Ship Update: Yards

This time, I thought I would be more detailed in the stages in preparing something to be put on the model. The ship has six yards, the horizontal beams from which the rectangular sails hang. These are all cut from apple wood doweling, but I had a bit of a problem. Whether through poor planning on my part or the kit's, I ended up with two pieces of doweling that were each just a little too short for what I needed for one of the yards. I went to the hobbie shop, but the only doweling they had was just pine or something, not even close to the same. I decided the better option would be to join together the two pieces I had.

One handy tool has been this little saw that I've used to cut all the timber.	Another was a rotery tool that I clamped in a vice to make a little lathe.
Using these two tools, I roughed out notchs in each dowel.	I then used an exacto-knife to square out the notchs.
Ordinary carpenter's glue is fine for wood on wood. I used regular super glue on everything else.	Another great tool has been this little drill set. This I used to make pilot holes for two brass pins.
The pins are actually small nails that were used extensively when planking the hull.	Clamp and let dry.
Then, using these mini wire cutters ...	... I clipped off the heads and points of the nails.
However, this still just looks like a chunk of dowel.	Sanding smooths it out and tapers the ends. (sorry the picture's so blurry)
Three coats of varnish, a little coloured MinWax wood filler, and some polishing with steel wool, and the joint doesn't look bad.	Here are all six yards. I've included a scale figure to give you how big these would be in real life (and this isn't a large ship). It's not hard to see where a lot of Canada's old growth forests went.

Mike

RIP

Model Ship Update

I haven't done anything with my model ship in about half a year. I'm not exactly sure why I dropped out of it. Part was the need for glasses, but I got those in March. Another part was certainly too much X-Box, but I think I'm back in the swing of it now. Here are some pics of the three jibs I just added. You'll likely notice the stain on the topmost jib (called the flying jib). I stained the sails in cold tea to age them, but I left a bag in the water and that part of the jib was pressed right against it. I'm not sure if it makes it look more authentic or not, but I'm kinda stuck with it now.

You can see all the pictures if you want on my Flickr.



Mike

Chaotic Cottage Opening

We're at the cottage for the first time of the season and was greeted to quite the welcoming. Debbie took some pics but we don't have the linking cable. I'll make sure to get some up soon.

We lost two trees over the winter. One was perfectly healthy but sheered off about 20 feet up. The trunk shattered when it hit the ground but the top bit of it clipped the corner of the cottage. The damage doesn't look to bad - no water is coming in anyway, but I'm going to have to doing some roof repair this summer. Meh, it was due for shingling anyway. The other tree pulverized our septic line and glanced of the back shed. The shed is toast, but it was just an old outhouse that I converted anyway. It's no loss and provides another good summer project.

My son's, Mike and Sean, were a great help repairing the septic line and we got that back together yesterday morning. I then spent the rest of the day wrestling with the water pump. We simply draw our water from the lake. It got started with little difficulty and was running fine for a few hours. Then Debbie noticed it came on but wasn't shutting off. Turned out that I had too much line on the float at the foot of the water line and it was sucking mud off the bottom. I then spent the next few hours trying to get it going again, but it never seemed to be building enough pressure. I thought it was a loss of prime, but by the end of the day it seemed clear there was something more wrong and I resigned myself that I would be taking the thing apart the next day.

This morning my brother-in-law came over (he's far more mechanical then me) and we proceeded to take the pump apart. He guessed the problem before we even began and we soon discovered a small piece of quartz, no more than a few millimeters across, wedged in the venturi valve. Pebble removed, pump re-assembled and primed, many thanks to my brother-in-law, and the thing working fine again. The gunk from the bottom of the lake had worked its way into the plumbing though. Most of it flushed out fine but the float cut-off in the toilet doesn't work now, but with everything closed now, this will have to wait for another weekend.

I haven't even started clearing the mess from the trees yet. And I thought cottages were supposed to be relaxing.

Cracking 10 000

I just cracked 10 000 achievement points on the XBox360. For those that don't know, each game for the XBox gives players the opportunity to earn points by completing certain achievements within the game. These points are attached to your gamertag for all to see (mine's OldManJava in case you want to look me up).

Although this obviously indicates that I spend way too much time playing video games, I thought I would list here the ten games in which I earned the most points. I wouldn't exactly call this my top 10 game list, but it certainly indicates which games I've played a lot.

#1: Mass Effect - 1050 points - 46 or 46 achievements:

A fun RPG from Bioware - the folks that brought us the brilliant Knights of the Old Republic. I'm not a big RPG fan but the real-time, cover based, combat makes this one an exception. You play space soldier John (or Jane) Shepard out to save the galaxy from a new, alien, threat. The universe of the game is deep and populated by a variety of well defined species, several of which you have fighting with you in your rag-tag band. There's plenty of options for classes and abilities as you level up, but none of them are too overwhelming. These abilities are fairly well balanced giving no clear "best" way to play the game.

You will also find an abundance of different weapons, armour and upgrades. The shear volume of these upgrades seems initially overwhelming until you realize that most of it is crap and will never be used - something that is a bit annoying. In fact, once you realize what the good weapons and armour are - allowing you to sell the rest making tons of cash - the game become incredibly easy as you and your squad mow down your less well equipped enemy. Even on the insane setting, the difficulty curve is a bit backwards with the first quarter of the game being the hardest, and the rest being a cake walk.

The story itself is reasonably compelling and well told with solid voice acting and character animation. Though skippable, the dialogue scenes can get a bit long. You do have some ability to steer the story in different directions through your actions, so be careful what you skip. Overall, a solid, fun, game that should get me picking up Mass Effect 2.

#2: Fable 2 - 1020 points - 49 of 66 achievements:

Another light RPG (it's just so easy to get achievement points in these things). The thing I like the most about Fable 2 is it doesn't take itself seriously at all. There's some story about some guy building some big evil tower for some reason - but who cares? This is a great big world for you to run around and be an idiot it. Impress the townsfolk by dressing like an chicken and farting, or perhaps become a demon dominatrix with a harem of spouses (either gender works) and spend your time scaring little children. It's all up to you.

If you're looking for something with balanced, tactical, gameplay, then look elsewhere. The game provides you with so many potions and resurrection phials, and the weapons and abilities are so over the top, that the thing is ridiculously easy. So much so that after three play throughs, I've yet to die once. I recall giving up on the first Fable because the combat mechanics were so cumbersome, but this "fix" really seems to over compensate as there is no challenge to this game at all. I also don't like how you seem to warp from one area to another. For me this removes any feeling of immersion in a world. This left me caring little for the story and even less for the characters (other than my dog, of course).

But perhaps I'm nick-picking. It's hard to dis a game that gives you achievements for getting people drunk and sleeping with multiple partners.

#3: Assassin's Creed - 1000 points - 44 of 44 achievements:

Receiving mixed reviews, I can certainly see how this game is not for everyone, but I loved it. It's not perfect. The unskippable dialogue scenes can be insufferably long, but I actually found the story engrossing. You play Desmond, a citizen of the near future who is prisoner of an unknown group. They place Desmond into a device that allows the user to search through his genetic memories to the time of the Crusades where an ancestor of Desmond's was an assassin in the Holy Land. The concept works amazingly well with two parallel, but somehow connected, story threads - one in the past and one in the future.

The game itself is gorgeous, with the ancient cities of Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus being stunningly realized and populated. The character animation and mechanics of moving around is so well done that simply stalking the streets and scaling buildings is a delight. The quests that you are sent on do get a bit repetitive, but I was more than willing to put up with that and will be there to pick up Assassin's Creed 2 when it comes out.

#4: Dead Rising - 980 points - 49 of 50 achievements:

My relationship with this game is definitely a love/hate one. It's like that girl friend that you know is no good for you but you can't help thinking about her. On the one hand I love the open game play and the simple concept - survive 72 hours in a zombie invested mall. The clock is always ticking in the game (5 minutes of real time is 1 hour of game time) and what you do during that time is up to you. You can rescue other survivors, investigate the origins of the zombie outbreak, practice your photography, or simply run amok. The thing is, with time always pressing, there is no way to do it all. You have to decide how you play the game. Capcom also made the great decision to provide a huge variety of weapons laying around. Almost everything that can be picked up can be used as a weapon, from machine guns to two-by-fours, from chainsaws to mannequins. That element of the game is a blast.

But then there's the bad. The AI of the other survivors is atrocious, often hysterically so, as it's not unusual to find them stuck in a running animation against a wall or each other with the only way of dislodging them is to rough them up a bit. The voice overs during gameplay are equally bad. Only two voice are used for every, non story, character - one male, one female - and they cycle through the same half dozen or so phrases. My kids and I have a running joke of yelling "Fraaank!", or "this can't be happening" because of this game. The unbelievably bad voice-overs are in stark contrast to the largely solid voice work and animations in the cut scenes. It almost seems like the two were made by different companies. The bosses are similarly more annoying than challenging, as are the final legs of the game. The game also has a crazy difficulty curve as you struggle to learn that many of the weapons are largely useless with no logical reason why (hitting someone with a mannequin does more damage then shooting them). Then, once you've found the right weapons (baseball bats and mini-chainsaws) they rest of the game is insanely easy.

Curiously, these deficiencies somehow add up to something fun, like a b-grade horror movie that has no right to be as entertaining as it is. If I believed that this was intentional on the part of Capcom, then I would have high hopes for Dead Rising 2, but I suspect the strange convergence was more a fortunate accident. After all, the best b-movies are the once where the director thought he was making art.

#5: Left 4 Dead - 765 points - 41 of 50 achievements:

Ah, another zombie game, but this is certainly a different animal than Dead Rising. While Dead Rising charmed me with it's quirky annoyances, Left 4 Dead is polished and perfectly balanced. Left 4 Dead is an on-line co-op game where you play one of four survivors stranded in the zombie apocalypse. You have one purpose, to get you and your friends to the rescue vehicle waiting at the end of one of four playable campaigns. Against you is wave upon wave of fast moving zombies that want nothing more than to bring you down. Oh, and did I mention, you get to play as the zombies too. By creating special zombies (or infected, as the game likes to call them) that have the ability to instantly ensnare survivors, the game forces the players to work together and cover each other's back. The loan wolf is easy pickings here.

More over, the items and enemies spawn differently each time, which is controlled by what Valve calls the "AI Director". The game actually monitors how the players are doing. Is your team really hurting? Well, maybe the director will through a med-pack your way (then again, perhaps not). Are you guys doing really well? An extra horde or two should slow you down. The variability extends right down to AI dialogue and individualized music soundtracks for each player. The amazing thing is that the game still feels polished and scripted each time you play.

If Valve is known for anything, it's for play testing the hell out of their games, and it shows. The weapons are incredible balanced with no weapon outshining the others. This extends to the four playable infected types. Despite their various abilities, forcing you to play them very differently, none is better to play than the others. In fact, their abilities complement each other well and players that play the infected like a team can devastate their opponents.

This game will likely climb this list a bit still, as I have more achievements to get. Fast paced and incredibly fun, Left 4 Dead is easily my favourite game I'm currently playing.

#6: The Orange Box - 760 points - 79 of 99 achievements:

The Orange Box is clearly one of the best values you'll ever get out of a video game. When Valve released Episode 2 of Half Life 2 it not only packaged it with re-releases of Half Life 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 1 (yes, the titles are confusing), it also included two brand new games: Team Fortress 2 and, the star of the show, Portal. Portal alone is worth the price of the package, but let's start with the Half Life games.

If you are at all a shooter fan, but somehow have not played Half Life game, then the Orange Box is a must. Brilliantly paced, Half Life sets the standard for story telling through this medium. The story is not told through fun stopping cut scenes, but through live interactions with the environment and characters. These characters are wonderfully realized and voice acted. In fact, the character of Alyx, who accompanies you through much of the games, is, in my opinion, the best realized AI character out there. As great as the story telling is, it never gets in the way of the fun. The strider battle at the end of episode 2 is particularly intense and a blast.

Then there's Portal, the shooter unlike any you have ever played. Describing Portal just doesn't work. You have to play it. At first it may seem a bit confusing, but the game eases you into the central concept gently before you are pushed into a world of clever puzzles, and the driest wit you will find anywhere. It is often laugh out loud funny, though to say this is some kind of comedy game is dead wrong. Portal is easily one of my favourite games of all time and I quickly downloaded the expanded version, Portal - Still Alive, from XBox Live.

Finally there's Team Fortress 2, a co-op, on-line combat game. This game certainly has its fans but I really don't have much to say on it as I've never played it. I didn't think I would like the on-line gaming, but given the fun I've been having with Left 4 Dead, perhaps I should reconsider that.

#7: Crackdown - 730 points - 33 of 50 achievements:

The premise of Crackdown is a simple one. You're a genetically alter supercop in a city overrun by gangs. Your job is to clean them up in the best way you see fit, and if a few civilians get in the way, well that's the price of justice, Right? As you level up through the game your power reach superhuman proportions with you eventually leaping across rooftops and picking up and throwing cars at your enemies. Your weapons scale up to the point where you can snipe people you can't even see and rain pyrotechnic carnage upon anyone unfortunate enough to be in your way. That said, it's not like the game's a cake walk as the enemies are numerous and powerful enough to keep you challenged.

The city you play in is huge with everything open to you right from the beginning. You can literally drive right up to the final boss' digs and take him on at the beginning if you like, though good luck with that! The game has no load screens. All elements are loaded on the fly as you approach an area. It works incredibly well, making the game non-stop action and difficult to put down. The game play is completely over the top but is varied enough for it not to get dull. Great mindless fun!

#8: Gears of War 2 - 690 points - 44 of 66 achievements:

My three brothers are big into Gears and I've spent a respectable amount of time the past few months playing with them on-line, but I'm quickly growing bored of the thing. It's not like it's a bad game - far from it. Gears is a solid shooter. The cover based mechanics work very well, the graphics are great and, at times, stunning. The characters are memorable, with good voice work and entertaining dialogue, and there's a respectable variety in the multi-player. Although the story itself is pretty much nonsensical, there's enough variety in the campaign mode to keep you going. There's just not enough substance there to hold me for that long. I've played through the campaign three times, once in co-op, so I'm done with that. The tactics in the multi-player just seem like the same thing over and over, race for the power weapons and master the shotgun. We'll, that's not enough to keep me going indefinitely. Overall, though, it's still one of the better games to come out of last fall. I'll still be there to pick up Gears 3 when it comes out.

#9: Far Cry 2 - 650 points - 33 of 48 achievements:

Far Cry 2 is an open world, first person, shooter in which you play a mercenary in an unnamed African country. Your mission is to kill the notorious arms dealer, the Jackel. Unfortunately, you muff up the job by nearly dying of malaria and the Jackel escapes not long after the opening credits are over. You then spend most of the rest of the game leasing your skills to whomever will pay and finding other mercenary buddies who are willing to lend you a hand on your various missions. There is some attempt at trying to weave these missions into the story of the Jackel, but it is a weak one. In fact, the Jackel plays a very small roll in most of what you spend your time doing. As far as the story goes, the thing's rather aimless.

That said, the world you are put in is massive and beautifully realized. The environmental effects are the best I've ever scene. I've actually stopped what I've been doing to admire a sun set, or to watch a tree burn (eirily beautiful at night). In fact, the explosions and fire take on a life of their own. Shoot a propane tank and it doesn't just explode, it shoots a jet of fire out of the bullet whole, spinning crazily. The weather effects are also wonderful. The wind will pick up suddenly whipping the trees into a frenzy, cloud cover changes, storms roll in. It really is an accomplishment.

Although the quests can get repetative, and it's annoying that almost everyone shoots at you on sight, it's still a lot of fun. There's a large variety of weapons and you can arm yourself based upon your play style, quiet and stalking, or running in guns blazing. Although the story telling is rather scattered, I like the whole "heart of darkness" mood of the game. The various characters are well animated and the voice work is excellent. There's also multi-player (sadly no co-op which would have been awesome) and an amazingly powerful map editor if you are into that kind of thing (I'm not). Overall, the game is immersive and a lot of fun, though at times glitchy (something I'm not used to from Ubisoft Montreal). A particularly painful bug corrupts saved game files which can be very frustrating. The bug caught me a couple of times before I came up with a saving regime that worked around it. Maybe there's a patch now, but there wasn't one during the time I was playing.

#10 Halo 3 - 540 points - 13 of 79 achievements:

I was surprised this one is one made the list considering that I only earned 13 achievements, all of them during my two play throughs on campaign. They're almost all story achievements except for one sniping and one needler achievement that I wasn't even trying to get. Seems to me like a lot of points for just playing the basic game. Halo 3 is really my youngest son's, and I'm not a huge fan of it. I mean, it's fun and all (the vehicular mahem can be particularly enjoyable), but I found the story pretty tired by this point and the game play pretty standard. It's a solidly built game, but I get bored pretty easily. I can say my son and his on-line buddies make extensive use of the map forging abilities and have a lot of fun with it, it's just not my cup of tea.

With a Bullet: Bioshock - 330 points - 27 of 51 achievements:

I thought I would include this one as it seems almost certain to make it's way well up this list. It's almost been two years since this game came out. I have been planning to pick it up for some time, but always found something else instead. When I saw it used a week ago, I couldn't pass it up. I'm still in the middle of my first play through, but I can tell I'll be coming back for more. Looking over the achievement list, this may be one where I'll be shooting to get them all.

Bioshock plays like a combination of Half Life 2 and Resident Evil 4. The story telling is reminisent of Half Life, not relying on cut scenes but instead allowing the story to evolve as you explore your environment. The gameplay is like Resident Evil minus the annoying quick-time events, ridiculous boss fights, and laughable dialogue. What reminds me most of Resident Evil are the vending machines scattered throughout the game from which you buy ammo, health, upgrades, and the like. They, of course, make no sense, but the game covers that with a quirkly sense of humour that reminds me of the merchants from Resident Evil.

Enough with the game comparisions. Bioshock is set in 1960. Your a sole survivor from a plane crash who finds refuge in the massive, under water, city of Rapture, rendered in moldy, art deco, glory. You soon realize that things ain't quite right in Rapture as the citizens are, for the most part, genetically altered lunatics lead by the cities founder, Andrew Ryan, who wanted to build a capitalist utopia free from the annoyances of government regulation and morality. The game is varied and well paced. The weapons are interesting and fun to use, especially the genetic enhancing "plasmids" that allow you to gain all kinds of nifty powers like telekenicis and the ability to shoot wasps from your hands - what fun! The mood is dark and creepy, but not overpoweringly so. The developers never forget that, above all, video games are supposed to be fun.