And here's what we got:
Regardless, in my long-standing tradition of playing games well past their popularity spike (I haven’t even reviewed Mass Effect or Bioshock 2, both recently played) I recently picked up Torchlight on the XBox Arcade. From my vague recollections, Torchlight was something like Diablo, but streamlined and graphically updated.
Believe it or not, that’s pretty much it. Well, except the compelling storyline.
I’m not an Apple fanboy. Truly I’m not. Now that said, I have a macbook, an iPad, and an iPhone that I have through my current workplace. By all accounts, one would think that I am a total fanboy. I mean, I own pretty much one of their everything. I’ll even go on to say that I really, really enjoy their products; I like the iPhone/iPad interactions, I enjoy the iterations of their OS, and I appreciate the aesthetic of their products.
I have never been a total fan though. At the end of the day, they are tools that I use to get things done throughout my day. I don’t hold them in any higher regard than the PCs that I use at my workplace (or grew up with). I’ve had my issues with their products as well and I’ll be the first to point them out. I will also be the first in line to point out that Apple has ‘screwing their clientele’ down to a high art. I mean, they have a release schedule and setup that makes sure that everyone that purchases their wares will be jealous of those who purchase the next iteration. They can really be dicks like that. They engineer demand so well that there should be a degree in it available to higher education locales.
But as of Thursday, July 7th, 2011, I can say that I am now a loyal customer of Apple. Still not a fanboy, but they’ve secured my loyalty. And all it took was an email.
I’ve been waiting a long time for this.
Pretty much everyone who played the first Portal has been chomping at the bit for a sequel of sorts to come around. That being said, Portal was a bit of a sleeper hit (and meme generator). It took a while for it to become popular. It took even longer for for it to become popular to release on its own. It did, of course, and I’ve been the proud owner of Portal: Still Alive (the XBox 360 release) for a good while now.
So when I heard about a Portal 2 coming out, I became very excited (along with a good portion of the Internet). What’s interesting is Portal came out in 2007. There is a 4 year gap between the two games, which is a long time in the game industry. With that kind of gap, people are going to be expecting a lot from this release.
So the question is: does it stand up?
Yeup.
So I’ve mentioned at some point or another that a lot of my work at RY has been developing jquery plugins and the like to make our lives easier during the busy reporting season. Overall they’ve worked out pretty well, but every once in a while someone finds a bug with one (or all) that needs addressing. Since they’re my creations, It’s usually put to me to correct these things.
Most of the time, these bugs are a small oversight on my part, or just straight-up stupidity. I’m not perfect, and I’ll gladly fix these things as they come up. I don’t consider bugs in my code that people find to be an affront to my skill; in reality I find them an opportunity to get better at what I do.
Then you run into something like a bug using setInterval, and things just stop making sense.
Font-replacement is a thing now on the internet. Gone are the days of Helvetica, Arial, and like, three other fonts. Now designers, coders, and hacks can add fonts to any web project. Heck, sometimes even for free!
But of course there are always drawbacks. The number of font-files you need is staggering, and the CSS you need to set up borders on the insane. Here’s the best CSS code I’ve seen for that. Then there’s the licensing issues: font’s ain’t free (mostly). If you want to use a good collection of the fonts out there, you have to pay. There are loads of services out there at this point that can serve up almost every possible font you could ever want. Some you pay for, some (like what I use for my own website) are free.
Getting past the pay barrier and the CSS file drudgery, you are left with another issue: rendering. Some fonts, while applicable for the web, have not been optimized. There’s a big difference between a web-optimized font, and a print font that has been released to the web. That is to say the latter look like shit most of the time. This is a major difference between a mac and a PC.
Let me explain further.
I’m quickly becoming a big fan of Double Fine Productions, and the wonderful stuff that’s coming wonderfully out of their wonderful hands. I didn’t get a chance to review Costume Quest when it came out (by which I mean I was too goddamned lazy) but I can say that it was easily one of the best Xbox Arcade games to come out in forever.
When the expansion for Costume Quest came out, I burned through it and found that Double Fine threw in an easter egg/achievement that advertised their new game (and subject of this review), Stacking.
With some interesting mechanics, and the Double Fine sense of humour, Stacking makes for an interesting addition to the Xbox Arcade.
So I’ve been doing a lot of javascript development at work recently. I’ve basically created a lot of our reusable javascript ‘plugins’ to cover the common requirements of the work that we do. In many cases, this resides mostly (but not entirely) in online annual-report creation.
Anyone that’s in the business will know that there are some common functional elements that you end up having to build with javascript: accordions, tabs, faders, sliders, lightboxes, filters, etc. Many of these items can bleed over into non-report sites, such as intranets or even public-facing sites.
So while I doubt many people come to my actual website anymore, anyone who has done so in the last week or so will have noticed a… minor change to the site. That is to say that I’ve utterly changed everything. Basically I was getting bored of my old one, and to be honest I wasn’t happy with any part of the design of the old layout from the get go.
I made the last one basically because I have an impulse to change my layout roughly once every year (or two). I was suckered into the whole pop-out style that was going around at the time, and I wanted my piece of the action. As a side-effect, The site sort of fell on its ass when certain browsers hit it. I had already given up on the layout before I had even really finished it.
That’s always a good sign.
Oh look, another Professor Layton. I don’t think I need to outline once again how every Professor Layton game holds me firmly in its thrall. I’ve lost sleep with each game. Basically as long as Level 5 keep coming out with these games, they will keep taking the money I throw at them.
That said, the new Professor Layton came with a veritable feast of new mini-games, new puzzles, and one of the best story-lines in a game I’ve played in the last while. As a result, the newest addition to the series (Professor Layton and the Unwound Future) ends up being the best of the series (thus far).
So how was everyones Christmas? Good, I hope. Unless yours was anything like ours wherein the hot water and heating died on Christmas Day. We had to heat the place up with the stove tops. It was rustic.
Putting aside my moment of Little Tim, Theresa got me a present I’d have never thought to get myself. Hell, it was a gift I would have never guessed, as I’ve never exhibited that much outward desire for it. Now unless you’re not paying attention or you’re simple remedial, I am talking about the
Amazon Kindle.