Believe it or not, that’s pretty much it. Well, except the compelling storyline.

Synopsis

So your character (one of three builds) decides for vaguely heroic reasons to hack their way across the world to the small town of Torchlight. It’s a mining town, and they trade mostly in ‘ember.’ Ember is a precious crystal that is imbued with magical powers. Think materia, if you’re from a Final Fantasy background.

Anyways, like the Dwarfs from Lord of the Rings, they miners went too deep, and got too greedy. The end result is that the dark n’ evil things living in the bowels of the earth are now free-roaming. This is obviously bad for business, the town, and probably for the world to some extent. Think of the market spikes!

You roll up into town and take it upon yourself to rid the mines of evil. You also get to rid it of any valuables along the way, which I’m pretty sure is the unspoken rule with heros. A sort of payment in lieu. You button mash your way down through the levels of the mine, getting ever closer to the cause of all the bad…ness. Badness. Yeah, sure let’s just leave that one sitting there.

Gameplay

I have no idea how this plays on a computer (it’s platform of origin) but it plays out pretty smoothly on a console. The controls are simple, and you can customize them to best suit your playing style. Well mostly. Some keys are perma-bound, but it’s not that rough.

So Torchlight does play almost exactly like Diablo, which makes sense given that the team that made it worked on Diablo in the first place. I’d say there was a conflict of interest or stolen IP or something, but I assume Blizzard hasn’t noticed; they’ve been to busy rolling around on their giant piles of money. It takes the same isometric angle, the same horde of monsters approach, the same skill tree system, etc.

Seriously it’s Diablo. If you enjoyed the mechanics of Diablo, you’ll enjoy the mechanics of Torchlight, as there is almost nothing that’s different.

You can gamble, you can socket, you can enchant, you can use town portal scrolls, you have to use identify scrolls, there are level portals you can use to quick travel. The music is even similar (again, same people working on it), so you’ll feel right at home ripping baddies apart.

A lot of effort was put into making the controls as simple as possible for the player. You have a smashy button, a block button, a healing button, and a mana restore button. Every other button can be mapped to whatever you want. This allows you to set up your skill load-outs as needed. On top of that, you can get use the D-pad to swap between loadouts, so that you can have specific setups for specific situations.

Graphics

The graphics are shockingly rich, though given it’s a 3/4ths view game where you can’t really zoom in, I doubt they had to work all that hard on the textures. Regardless, The environments look lush, the enemies match the style of the game, and your character looks reasonably bad-ass. The detail put into the spells and ambient lighting is impressive, I must say. If anything, they probably put more effort into that than the rest of the texture work.

Now that all being said, when you do get to look at your character close-up, they do start to look a bit boxy. For obvious reasons, the poly-count was probably toned back as much as possible. When you start trying to render 20-30 badguys on the screen at once, you really want to try and make that as easy as possible on your rendering engine. Sadly though, it does make parts of the game look cheap.

Music

Have you played Diablo or Diablo 2 at all? If so, you’ll feel right at home in Torchlight. I mean, they got the same guy that did Diablos music to write the score(s?) for Torchlight. While Torchlight does have its own feel in with the music, you can’t help but thing that the composer probably didn’t have to work all that hard to put it together.

Issues

It’s boring.

If you are looking for a deep, driving storyline, you won’t find it here. If you want to feel like a god as you mow down 20 guys at the same time, you’ll have fun. It’s not that it’s boring to play so much as it’s not compelling you to play through it. It really is a game for those who like to grind through levels and power up like mad.

In terms of story… well there is no story really. I honestly didn’t give a toss about anyone or anything in the game, and that includes my little wolf sidekick. There aren’t really other characters, so much as there are NPCs who will shower you with ‘quests’ and gold and such.

It’s easy.

If you spend a couple minutes looking over your skill-tree, you’ll realize that there’s a pretty easy setup that you can go through that will basically make you a god. That’s what I did, and even though I played well past the end of the main story, I only died 2 or 3 times. Those deaths were normally caused by me just not looking at the screen. Which brings me to the other part of this:

All you have to do is button mash. Never have I played a game that rewarded button mashing so much. It’s stupid. What’s worse is that you have to button mash. I’d love to target something and have my character bash the shit out of it until it dies, I die, or I decide to change tactics. I shouldn’t have to ruin 2 buttons on my controller just to play through a game.

Overall

Is it a bad game? No. Was it fun? Yes. Would I play it again with the other characters? Nuh uh. Would I buy it again? probably not. Do I feel like I wasted my money? Nah.

5/10

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.

The Story

To understand my new-found loyalty, we have to roll back to July 1st, 2011. Canada Day, for anyone that is unaware happens on this day. As a proud Canadian I went off to the large London-based party that took place in Trafalgar Square. It was a fun day despite a gross lack of cider, and fun was had by all. I was decked out in Canadian stuff (shirt, tattoos, etc.) and I was even wearing shorts! I almost never wear shorts due to a general lack of ownership as well as a general distaste for them.

As the day wore down, I, along with my friends, decided to head on home as we were a bit drunk, a bit tired, and in my case a bit (a lot) sunburnt. We took the district line from Embankment, and then transfered to the National rail at Liverpool street. After getting off the train and walking half way home from the station to my house, I noticed that my phone was missing.

Now I knew that I had my phone when I got onto the underground at Embankment, so I had either lost it or my phone had been nicked whilst I was on the train. This can basically be blamed on my shorts – damn you shorts! – since they have wide, shallow pockets, and that’s a bad thing when you are sitting down with a long phone in said pocket. Regardless, my phone was gone.

Fuck.

For those that have never lost their phone, let me describe it to you: it sucks. It sucks badly. It sucks even more if you’re a tech addict like me, and even more so if you legitimately need your phone to do thinks like call people and services.

As soon as I got home, I jumped onto my mobileMe account. Thankfully, I’m involved in the iOS 5 beta (thanks @geofas), which means that I have free access to their Find My Iphone services (something that will be free for everyone, and was formerly a paid-for perk of the mobileMe service). I sent a message to the phone – ‘If you could turn this phone in, that would be amazing’ –  but I had to wipe the phone anyways. Why? Because it’s a company phone, and it’s got a lot of stuff on it that I’d get hell for if it leaked. Nothing sinister, but important work I.P. stuff.

Anyways, once you wipe your iPhone you can no longer track it. This was a sad reality that I just had to take. I had no hope of anyone actually turning in an iPhone 4. I mean, it’s an iPhone 4 in full working order.

On monday, I got the IMEI and SIM numbers from my work and logged the phone as lost with the TFL and National Rail. I wasn’t expecting much. I didn’t even bother reporting it to the police, because in all truthfulness, there isn’t really much they can do. I logged an order with my work for a new phone, and whimpered at the £450+ cost attached to my own stupidity. It was an expensive mistake.

“But Corey!” you sputter, ” Surely a man of your rugged good looks and shining brillance would have phone insurance, no?” No. I didn’t. I almost do now, I have to wait a week after upgrading my bank account but I didn’t have it at the time. Some friends suggested I get some for a phone that I no longer possessed, wait a week, and then report it lost. Basically they suggested I commit fraud. I declined, because I was going to take my costly lesson with as much good grace as I could muster. The high ground sucks sometimes.

I’ll skip the part where I went through horrible tech withdrawal. Suffice it to say, it’s horrible, and I totally understand people who are quitting smoking. Well, the mental portion anyways. I didn’t suffer from the shakes or anything, but I was irritable as shit and perpetually frustrated at everyone around me that still had their phones. It was bad, man, real bad.

As the week went on, I kept an eye on my email, hoping that I’d see an email show up from TFL or National Rail. On Thursday the 7th, I got an email from Apple Support. Now I hadn’t logged anything with them, and so I thought it was probably spam. Just to be on the safe side though I opened the mail, and was given the following:

Mr. Corey dutson

We were contacted today, because your iphone was found, it is in :
Shepherds Bush Police Station
226 Shepherds Bush Road
Hammersmith
London
W6 7NX

kind regards,
andreia, apple team*

*This is actually the address for the Hammersmith Metro Police station. Apple sorta screwed that up, but looking at the street name, I totally get why they could screw that up.

Now either this was the most specific spam email ever, or it was a legit email from Apple. I was willing to take that chance. I dropped what I was doing, jumped on the train, and made my way to the address. Then I went to the real address after I found out Apple gave me the wrong one. I walked into the police station and 5 minutes, some joking, and a lot of thank yous later, I was re-united with my phone.

We had celebratory Thai food that night. It was divine.

What happened?

As near as I can tell, when I logged into the Find My iPhone system and wiped my phone, Apple must have flagged the IMEI number in relation to my account. When the phone was plugged in, charged, and processed at the police station, Apple must have been alerted through the phone popping up in iTunes or the like. They then emailed me to let me know where it was, and I got my phone back, against all the odds.

The result?

Apple didn’t have to do that. I hadn’t logged a support request with them, nor ever paid for mobileMe. They had no obligation to do anything about it, and yet they did. Sure it’s not a large amount of effort on their part, and I’m sure most of it is automated anyways. The point is: they did me a small kindness, and I got my phone back.

What basically equated to about 40 seconds of effort on their part reunited me with my phone. If they hadn’t done that, I would have to purchase another one of their products. Their emailing me actually stopped them from making a sale. It did, however, make me see them in a new light and they’ve secured my pocket book for a good long while to come now. That’s an amazing long-term view and a gamble, and more companies should think like this. It fosters loyalty that you just cant buy with discounts or free soda.

So you know what? People can go on and on about how they screw their customers, their price-points are insane, and all their stuffs for hipsters, designers, etc. All I know is they’ve made themselves one more loyal customer, and all for sending an email.

One more thing…

The police wouldn’t give me the contact details for the woman that turned in the phone. I totally understand, but I’m a bit sad because I can’t thank her myself properly. I will say this though:

Thank you Ema. Thank you so much for doing what many others wouldn’t have done. You’re a swell human being, and I hope you get that promotion you want because damnit, you deserve it. Also, your hair looks amazing today. Seriously, you’ve got like, TV hair goin’ today. And hey, have you been working out? You’re looking really good! I am totally jealous.

You’re awesome, but you already knew that didn’t you.

The whole ‘open world, do what you want, oh by the way there’s some actual story here if you wanna play it’ model never really did much for me. It’s neat and all, I get the appeal, but I never really got into it.

So then they start talking about L.A. Noire, and my first thought was “oh good, GTA in the 1940′s but this time you’re a cop and will get shot at by bad guys instead of the other way around. Yawwwwn” and promptly ignored it. But then they started releasing the trailers for L.A. Noire, and I watched them. And then I watched some more. And then I started reading about what L.A. Noire was really going to be. A detective game, but with chases, shakedowns, shooting, and moral implications.

Then I got excited.

I’ve read many a thing about L.A. Noire since it’s come out, but the best one I’ve found so far is “It’s Phoenix Wright, but with claws” and I think that’s a very good way to put it. L.A. Noire is, at it’s core, an adventure game. You track down clues, you talk to suspects, and you try and make an arrest. That is the core of L.A. Noire, and it does it very, very well.

It still has the city-driving that GTA-lovers will enjoy, but you cant just walk into random stores and talk to people, you can’t just shoot everyone, and (as far as I know, being 60% done the game as of this writing) there’s no actual involvement of your home life. You apparently have a wife and kids, but I’ve yet to see a trace of them.

You’re also punished for running into people, smashing cars, and destroying property. Yeah, that’s right; you can’t just go flying around like a maniac, decimating the city in a manic attempt to bring it under your heel.

Synopsis

The year is 1947, you’ve come back from the war, and joined the L.A. police force to act as a beacon of hope and fortitude in this crazy city. You’re a go-getter though, you don’t just do what you’re told, but make the extra effort to make sure things get done and done right. This moxy gets you noticed by the higher up detectives, and you are told to “get yourself two suits, and get them pressed.” Soon you’re starting your illustrious career in the detective world, interviewing folks and finding clues.

Gameplay

The game splits up the gameplay into ‘cases’. You can only have one case going at a time, which I think was done to keep your head from exploding. The stories can get fairly intricate, and trying to do them all at the same time would probably kill you. Each case opens with an in-game cinematic of the crime itself, but done in typical noire fashion; that is to say that  you never see the perp, only the end result of their mis-doings.

The mechanics of the game can be broken into five sections: Free-roam, Clue finding, Interviewing, and The Chase, Intuition

Free-roam

Yes, you can drive around the stunningly re-created 1947 L.A. should you choose to. There are some incentives to do this as well. There’s all the monuments you can find (30) film reels you can hunt down (50) and the badges for those that pre-ordered the game (20?). On top of that, there are 95 different vehicles to drive, and 40 street crimes to address.

Having said that, when you are on route to a destination and a street crime pops up… well driving across the city is only fun the first time. Especially when cars don’t get out of your way, even when you’ve got your siren on. Really, most of the free-roaming should be left to the end game, so that you can find everything without worrying too hard about the costs you will wrack up at the end of the case.

Clue finding

Rockstar must have thought hard about how to handle this. The reason I say this? They did a damned fine job with it. When you enter a clue-gathering session, the music goes into ‘detective mode’ and your character walks slowly. You walk around until a small cue (rumble and staccato music flourish) when there’s something to investigate. The catch is that not everything needs to be looked at. Much of the time, they will be random items that do not pertain to the case. But if you want to find all of the clues, you’ll look over everything, like I do.

When you pick something up, you can move it around, looking for important details. On top of that, many clues can be further investigated, which can reveal even more for your case.

All the relevant clues are then logged in your little black book for use during interviews.

Interviewing

Interviewing people is an enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating part of L.A. Noire. When talking to someone, you will be given 3 options when any exchange has ended. You can assume they’re telling the truth, you can doubt what they’re saying, our you can call them on a lie. Only one of the options is correct.

If you think their lying, but you’ve got no proof, you can use doubt. That’s what this is really for. It took me a while to understand what they meant with ‘doubt.’ I thought you would ask further questions when in fact it’s more or less calling them a liar without calling them a liar.

When you call someone out on a lie, you’ve got to pick the proof that backs up your claim. This gets harder as the cases go on, because you start amassing a lot of evidence and it becomes somewhat more difficult to find what evidence backs your claims. As it stands some items in your roster never actively come into play, but sit there, ruffling their red feathers at you.

When you pick the correct answer, you’ll hear a certain piano tinkling of keys. When you pick the wrong answer, you’ll hear a different, slightly more depressing tinkling of keys. It only takes a couple screw-ups to have these sounds embedded in your skull.

The Chase

More often than not, you’ll have to run down a guilty party. They always run. Always. It’s irritating at the best of times. You either run people down on foot, which usually results in a football tackle; or by car wherein either you smash the hell out of their car and they crash, or the game feels sorry for you and eventually smashes them into something for you.

Thankfully, if you’re terrible at chasing people down (as I am with the car chases) the game will only force you to try 3 times. After you’ve failed that many times, it gives you the option of skipping it without any demerit applied to your end score. Now, I’m a stubborn bastard, so I haven’t used this yet, but I’ll admit the 2 times that the option has been offered… well it’s been tempting. I wouldn’t blame anyone for taking the game up on the offer; it lets you focus on all the other, more entertaining parts of the game.

Intuition

Intuition is an interesting concept. It’s basically a way of applying a gut feeling, when you’ve not got one yourself. In less fancy terms, you can use it for 2 things: revealing all the clues in a location (like a crime scene), or to remove one of the 3 options when interviewing someone. I should state that it only removes an option for that specific talking point, and not for the entire conversation. It also strikes out any evidence that doesn’t pertain to a lie in that conversation branch.

I’ve used intuition enough during the game, and there’s no shame to it. Some people are just really hard to read.

Graphics

In some ways, L.A. Noire is amazing to look at. The obscene amount of work they’ve done with facial scanning really shines. If they don’t use this technique in every game after this, they’re insane. It is really, really good. And that’s important in a game that bases a good bulk of itself around reading peoples faces. You can’t skimp on that, and Rockstar did anything but.

The rebuilding on L.A. is impressive as well. Rockstar has a habit of making their game environments as realistic as possible, and L.A. Noire is no exception. They pull this off by using whatever they can. With GTA, they drove around and took pictures. With L.A. Noire? They used extreme vintage aerial photography. Yeah. They found a huge stash of vintage photos taken by a half-insane aerial photographer, and used those to make their L.A. as close as they could get it. They’ve done a really good job of it, too.

They’ve also done a swell job with the cars. Then again, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, as a good part of their fortune is based on a game that involves a lot of car stealing/driving/destroying.

But then there are things that just don’t quite do it for me. Namely in the people. Despite the amazing facial work, the body mechanics have some work to be done. Everything ends up being jerky, regardless of how much motion capture they do. There are also some textures that seem really low-rez, despite the fact that so many others are super crisp. If they can capture these things, they’ll be set.

The Writing/Storytelling

When Rockstar wants to make a game as close to a film noire as they possibly could, they’ve done a pretty bang-up job. A lot of obvious care has gone into the game, and that really shows in both the writing, as well as the directing of each and every scene.

There’s not much I can say about the writing other than it’s fantastic. It’s accurate to the time (which means there is a lot of speech that lands itself right in the middle of ‘totally inappropriate’ territory with the modern day). It works perfectly for L.A. Noire though, because it’s a time piece so Rockstar can get away with pretty much anything.

Something that really needs mentioning though isn’t so much the writing (once again, fantastic), but the art direction and scene directing. Now I’ve not played much of Rockstars fare (as previously stated) but I’ve got a feeling that they usually do a good job with directing. However, I think it’s safe to say that due to the noire aspect to the game, they really had to step things up a notch.

The direction given in this game is some of the best I’ve ever experienced. I actually care about the outcomes; I care about the characters I should care about, and I dislike the ones I’m supposed to dislike. I am putty in the hands of Rockstar with L.A. Noire. The long cinematic scenes aren’t agony to watch, in fact it’s quite the opposite: I look forward to seeing them.

As any avid game would know, most of the time the cut scenes are the boring bits that try and convey a story in-between the fun bits. Such is not the case with L.A. Noire. No no, you watch these scenes, soak them up, and that makes the fun bits just that much more fun.

Music

I’ve always been a fan of Big band and the like, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of the music in L.A. Noire. But just mentioning the ambient music you hear in cars, diners, and piped through the radios of 1940′s L.A. would be a sin. It would be a sin because the actual music that was composed for L.A. Noire is really, really fabulous. It’s stunningly good mood-setting music. From the low, eerie tones of the investigation, to the fast-paced chase music, the composed music for L.A. Noire is stunning.

Issues

Despite the obvious amount of gushing I’ve been doing about L.A. Noire, there are a couple issues that really annoy me. It’s like having a fantastic burger served up to you, but then finding a topping on it, say tomatoes, that just takes away from the whole experience.

Also yeah, I’m not a fan of tomatoes. Deal with it.

Issue the first is the inability to save when you want. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind this was, but the fact that I can’t save between looking for clues and then interviewing people really bugs me. Especially since I’m a completionist, and want to get every conversation right. The game more or less picks and chooses when to save, and you’ve no control over it what so ever.

Hell, lets say you just wanted to free-roam around, and wanted to save at a specific part of the city. That’s a decent enough request right? Well too bad. You don’t get the option. The game saves when it wants to, and you’ve got little control over it.

That said, I have found save ‘areas’ that seem to trigger the save ability. These are usually outside of the station or investigation areas. This of course assumes the game is going to let you waltz out of the area without failing you. You’ve been warned.

My second issue, which has become infinitely more irritating for me is the driving. Not just driving around town, which can be irritating and dangerous as it is (people don’t really move out of the way, even when you’ve got the siren on). No my issue is that everyone you chase in a car seems to become this amazing rally driver, able to pull turns that don’t make any sense. They’re obviously scripted, but there is no way my car can pull the stuff they’re pulling.

The result?

I end up smashing into cars, lamp posts, and anyone on two legs. This is not a good thing. It negatively affects the end of case results and ranking. I mean I’m not a good driver in games at the best of time, so forcing me to rally race around a heavily populated L.A.? Yeah, that’s not going to end well.

Tailing on that last one, I’ll lump my last issues together: People are too fast. Every car goes as fast as my squad car with the peddle floored, and everyone I have to run after seems to become an Olympic sprinter. This includes the 70 year old man I had to gun down, as well as the fat motherfuckers that I’ve chased all over hells half-acre. It makes no sense!

Overall

A fantastic game, and I’ll happily purchase all of the DLCs as they come out. There are only a couple issues, and I can deal with them mainly due to the fact that the rest of the game makes up for them by being totally bad ass. If you’re into detective games, good story telling, and compelling stories, I’d suggest you grab yourself a copy of L.A. Noire.

9/10

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.

A friend of mine who happens to be on Steam gained access to Portal 2 early due to Valves early release crowd-source thing. A brilliant marketing scheme, it has to be said. Get loads of people to buy and play other titles on the Steam network, and they’ll release the game that everyone wants early… maybe.

Brilliant.

Anyways, his description of Portal 2 was two-pronged. The first statement I got was “It’s like Portal, but with money thrown at it.” The second: “It’s what Portal really should have been the first time.” I think these two statements sum up Portal 2 almost perfectly. I’d go on to say that a re-release of the original Portal with the new engine used in Portal 2 would gain a whole shedload of new sales for Valve. Yes it’s that good.

I should say that this review is based on the single-player experience of Portal 2. I haven’t had a chance to play the co-op mode, so I can’t speak to how amazing that most certainly is. If anyone reading this has Portal 2 on the Xbox and wants to play, lemme know. When I do get a chance to play the co-op, I’ll update this review. Anywho, on with the review!

Synopsis

You’re back in Aperture Laboratories.

After a brief wakeup from your stasis (for tutorial purposes), you’re woken again to a very different scene. You’ve been asleep a long, long time, and now Wheatley – that’s the robot that cares for all the humans in the facility – is trying to save you from dying. You get a refresher course on how to use the portal gun, and then you’re off the races.

You run into GLaDOS again, and she’s just totally psyched to see you since you killed her ‘n all. You get thrown back into the testing ring, with GLaDOS feeding you back-handed compliments and offering up some of the best writing ever. You work your way through the tests, until things get weird, and then they get much, much weirder. I’d explain the whole thing, but I can’t bring myself to spout off any major spoilers because, honestly, it’s so much better to just play the game and experience it.

Gameplay

Portal 2 plays out almost exactly the same as the original. The portal gun still shoots 2 portals, you can still fall from any height, but can’t swim. Also, pretty much everything can kill you. Nothing too surprising there. The floaty electro-orbs have been removed, in favour of using more of the thermal discouragement beams that you have to aim into targets. You also get excursion funnels, repulsion/propulsion/conversion gels, light bridges, cubes for redirecting lasers, and faith plates. Yeah, you lose the bouncy energy murder balls, but you get a lot more to play with. I’ll try and break it down for you:

Thermal discouragement beams (and the redirection cubes)

Lasers. Seriously that’s what these are. Lasers that go in a straight line, hurt anything that isn’t a cube, and are used to power switches and the like (just like the bouncy energy balls from the original Portal). The redirection cubes do exactly that: redirect. Specifically, they redirect the beams. Straight-forward really, much like the beams.

Light bridges

They’re bridges. Made of light. You can walk on them, block bullets, etc. It’s a wall you can walk on, basically.

The gels

The gels were probably some of the neatest additions to Portal 2. They more or less do what they say on the tin. The Repulsion Gel makes you (or anything else) that hits it bounce. Objects you coat in the blue stuff will also become high-speed bouncy balls. Propulsion Gel makes you move fast (somewhat exponentially). Conversion Gel turns any surface it’s a part of into a Portal-friendly surface. This is something I wish you had access to more often throughout Portal 2, but sadly is rather limited.

Excursion Funnels

These are basically levitation tunnels. You go in them (or put anything into them) and you will be pulled along in the tunnel until you hit a wall. You can slide out of the tunnel at any point, but you cannot fight the flow of the tunnel or move faster within it. You can basically only go sideways.

Faith plates

These launch you (or other things) through the sky to land on a target somewhere across the way. These are probably the most terrifying things you come across in the game, and yet they are the safest thing you’re likely to interact with in the whole game. It’s one of the few things in the game that can’t really kill you, since the landing spots are always the same.

Graphics

In many ways Portal 2 looks like the original Portal. At the very leave the look ‘feels’ the same, except it’s been polished so goddamned much it burns an awesome-shaped hole in your soul. It looks stunning. Effects aren’t over-done, but look stunning. The lighting is impressive, and their attention to detail with all of the decay is astounding. The views you get in this game are enough to make you stop and stare. The Ratman’s artworks are back in Portal 2, and these ones are very much of the ‘art’ variety. They’re worth finding, if only to look upon them and be moved.

All of the normal elements you interact with in the game have been obscenely polished as well. Companion cubes hum a little tune and glow pink in their cores. When you walk into rooms, Panels clean themselves up. Liquids are really, well, liquidy. Everything you interact with just shines with the effort and love given by the Valve team.

The writing/storytelling

Oh my god the writing. The writing in Portal 2 has been on a level beyond professional. The writing in Portal 2 surpassed the writing from the original by a mile. It’ probably helped that there is more than one person to write for, and back and forth banter is always better than writing monologues at the player. Here are a small, hopefully not very spoiler-y sample of the brilliance within Portal 2:

“Most test subjects do experience some, uh, cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now, you’ve been under for quite a lot longer, and its *not* out of the question that you might have a *very* minor case of serious brain damage! But, don’t be alarmed, alright? Uh, although, d-do feel alarmed. Try to hold onto that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being told that you’ve got brain damage!” – Wheatley, upon waking you up from stasis.

“Well done. Here are the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that. Don’t let that “horrible person” thing discourage you. It’s just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother’s decision to abandon you on a doorstep.” – GLaDOS, upon your finishing one of her tests.

“Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to put on a few pounds.” – GLaDOS, basically being a bitch.

This is, of course only the lightest sampling. Much, much better stuff exists in Portal 2, but to avoid massive spoilers, I’ve opted not to include them. The fact that Cave Johnson is voiced by J.K. Simmons really should be enough to have anyone play. If you’re from the UK, Stephen Merchant does the voice for Wheatley, and he does an amazing job as well.

Moving beyond the basic banter writing (which is some of the best game banter I’ve heard in forever), the story itself is compelling in its simplicity. You are given a lot of history and a lot of explanations. The story is paced out perfectly, and you get a lot of closure by getting through it all.I have to commend the Valve writing staff for this one. They’ve always done good work with their writing, but Portal 2 is a work of art in terms of writing and story-telling.

Music

Not much to say with the music in Portal 2. Well, not much that I can say without giving away even more of the game. What I will say is that where there is music, it’s used to very good effect. Never really over-bearing, but still helps set the mood of the scene and gets into your head. Also, do yourself and have a listen to companion cubes, and the end points for lasers and switches. They all have little tunes that both delight and annoy.

Issues

Nothing I can really say other than one or two of the puzzles just baffled the crap out of me. I did well overall, but some of them just had me sitting there wandering aimlessly until I happened to notice some platform or ledge that I needed to get onto.

My only advice is that as you get further into the Lab, you’d do well to take a moment and look around (in every direction) and note anything out of place or interesting. Chances are, you’ll need to interact with that point in order to finish the puzzle. Don’t forget you have a zoom option in Portal 2. Seriously, don’t forget that. It’ll help.

The other issue is that the single player campaign (as I haven’t been able to get into co-op yet) is shorter than I would have liked. I logged somewhere between 10-15 hours, and I would have been fine with another 5-10 in there. Then again, maybe the co-op will handle that. I guess I’ll have to wait and see about that.

Oh, and while not actually an issue, this is more of a note: If you haven’t played Portal 1, you do yourself a disservice if you don’t play it before playing Portal 2. You’ll still enjoy Portal 2, but you’ll be missing out on a lot of the jokes.

Overall

Brilliant. One of the best games I have played in a very long time. brilliant story, brilliant writing, everything’s been polished to a hefty sheen, and it’s basically amazing. You will be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t pick this one up.

9.5/10

That said, I’m going to break my rule a bit here and make a point to say that Canada, as a ‘great example’ of a democracy has some of the worst voting numbers I have ever seen. I’ll admit that I’m not that old, but there is imperial data to back me up, and the percentages have been slipping like my grades did throughout highschool.

To be honest, it’s a fucking disgrace, and we as a country should be utterly fucking ashamed.

Vote, goddamnit

I am probably a tad biased – in more ways than one – due to the fact that one of my friends is a full-fledged Liberal, as well as a political-science super brain. He has instilled upon me the massive importance that comes with voting. To be straight about it, voting is a very simple (yet powerful) way of trying to get a say in how your country is run.

That’s not all it does though. Did you know that the more votes a party gets, the more money it get the next time around to campaign? That means the more votes they get, the more they can get their message out. That means that if you actually do support a party (or an independent) they get a better chance the next time around to get more votes. That’s pretty goddamned important too.

On top of that, voting isn’t a right that you can choose to wave. It’s a privilege that you squander every time you refuse/spoil/just cant get your ass to a voting poll. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to things going on in some of the Middle East lately, but let me break it down for you: People are getting motherfucking shot, just for the chance to motherfucking vote. I mean goddamnit people! There are other people who are actually dying for the chance to have the very choice you refuse due to reasons you cannot validate to me.

There isn’t any reason you can give me not to vote: “No one to vote for?” Bullshit. You just haven’t bothered to look into the plethora of options available to you. “I was busy that day?” There are advanced polls and special ballots for that. “I’m not living in the country?” This one is my excuse and even I found a way to do it, though too late for me to actually manage it (by the time I found out how, there wasn’t enough time to get stuff mailed to/from Canada). I do, however know for the next time voting time comes around. Guess what? You can still vote out side of Canada.

Unless you’re dead or in a coma (and that doesn’t actually stop some people from voting), there isn’t a single thing you can say to me that will make me think you’ve got a reason to get out of it. Nothing. You have the ability to do what many in the world cannot. Fuck you if you can’t take advantage of that.

Get interested

I’m not saying you start reading everything about every political party all the time. That’d be a vast amount of bullshit you’d have to take in all the time. But a little bit of research goes a long goddamned way. Take a couple minutes out of your busy schedule and see just what is going on in your country. It’s not hard. There are many a publication, both in paper and via the Internets that will spell out what’s going on. Hell, each party even has its own website, if you want to see what they (more or less) stand for.

I myself am not a political pundit. I do not know about what every party is doing all the time. I know who I support, and I know why. I also know who is more or less the antithesis to what and how I want my country run, and why. I’ve made the effort. It doesn’t take long. Hell, people make websites like this that help spell some things out.

Seriously, just do a little goddamned research. Don’t vote for who your parents vote for. Don’t vote who your friends vote for. Do a little research and make an informed decision. A lot of the parties hope that you’ll just follow your friends and family, because as long as they get them sided up right, they don’t need to worry about you.

A special note to Mr. Rick Mercer, and a note to the youth of Canada

First off, watch this. I’ll wait.

Done? Good, I’ll continue.

As it stands, the youth of Canada historically, have the worst voter turn-out numbers. That’s depressing. We’re the ones who are generally the most impacted by the decisions, and yet we do nothing to affect them. We can do better.

That video came out at the end of March, and it’s taken some hold in the youth of Canada. I have to say as a man edging out of that group, I’m glad that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t be the minority in the group to actually vote. Young people everywhere in Canada are slowly realizing that having a say in who runs the country is actually important. There are a lot of young, eligible voters, and as Rick says himself ‘that scares the hell out of ‘em’. Seriously, there are over 3 million potential votes sitting there, don’t waste them.

But really, I extend that to everyone, not just the youth. I’ll admit that youth voting was particularly horrifying in the last election, but the country as a whole sucked a long and hard one when it came to voter turn-out. I mean really, look at the numbers: 58%. Fifty. Eight. Percent.

What the fuck is that? We tote ourselves as one of the great democracies of the world, but almost half of us didn’t even vote! That, right there, is bullshit. That’s well beyond unacceptable. That’s borderline criminal.

So.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I could, but I’ve already given some advice as to doing your own research and coming to your own results.

I’m a Liberal with NDP leanings, I’ll make no secret of that. I also think that Harper is a horrible person, as well as a horrible leader. I also think the Harper government (what WAS called the ruling government of Canada, until he renamed it) should be utterly removed from power.

That’s not the point though. This post isn’t about who you vote for. That is your decision, and I’ll respect that regardless of your choice. What I cannot and will not respect is not voting or spoiling your vote. Your country raised you better than that. There are others who would, and have, died for that chance. Don’t you dare go and throw it away.

Vote.

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.

Edit

Wow. I didn’t expect nearly as much traffic on this article as it ended up getting. I feel I should just put the learnings, work-arounds and the like up here, just to speed things up and to clarify.

I don’t like how setInterval works because if you lose the id reference, you’re hosed. That’s pretty much my gripe here. It’s just not a good implementation. Id’s that start at 1 (or 0!) and increment would at least allow a brute-force loop. A way to get back a collection of intervals in action would be swell. A proper ECMA addition to access the intervals in an object-esque manue would be awesome. Basically anything that didn’t require me to store every id somewhere for use later.

None of those options exist, and that’s the point of this article. The setInterval function returns something akin to a thread id, which you need to hold onto if you plan on killing the interval later (by passing it to clearInterval). It’s effectively a random integer, and the fact that there’s no way to access the intervals in any other way is silly to me. I will continue to think so until the logic can be explained in a way that makes sense.

The result of all of this? Don’t use setInterval if you can avoid it. If you can’t avoid it, pay close goddamned attention to when you use it so you don’t end up losing those all important references

Here are some ways to avoid losing the reference(s) / getting around setInterval:

Option one (original idea at the end of this post):

Use setTimeout with an external trigger of sorts. Gross, but it works well when you need to kill the function, and you may have left a closure / need to kill the function from somewhere else in your code.

//
//
var counter = 1, myTimeout;

function loopFunction () {
	if (counter < 5) {
		counter++;
		myTimeout = setTimeout(loopFunction, 5000);
	}
}

myTimeout = setTimeout(loopFunction, 50000);
//
//

Option 2:

Push the ids into an array, and use the array to kill them all later. Cleaner, but slightly more complex. Solves a slightly different issue to the last one.

//
//
var intervalArr = new Array();

function intervalOne () { alert ('foo');};
function intervalTwo () { alert ('bar');};

function killIntervals(){
	while(intervalArr.length > 0)
		clearInterval(intervalArr.pop());
};

// adds the intervals
intervalArr.push(setInterval(intervalOne, 2000));
intervalArr.push(setInterval(intervalTwo, 2000));

// removes them
killIntervals();
//
//

TLDR;

Click here to view the demo. Look at the source code, you’ll see what I’m demonstrating with this post. Be wiser for the fact and you’re done.

Some basics

So some basics on JavaScript for those that don’t know. review the following code:

//
//
var myVariable; // declare a blank variable

myVariable = 'Hello'; // sets the variable to 'Hello'
alert(myVariable); // will bring up an alert box that says 'Hello'

myVariable = 'Hi there'; // sets the variable to 'Hi there', overriding the old value
alert(myVariable); // will bring up an alert box that says 'Hi there'
//
//

That’s all basic JavaScript variable stuff. The reason I put this here is so you understand the concept that you can overwrite the value of a variable that was previously set. This is pretty much how variables work. It gets a little grey when assigning variable references but that’s not the point of this post.

Now there are two automating functions that people generally use: setInterval and setTimeout. I’m aware of web-workers and such, but I’m not getting into those here.

They generally work like this:

//
//
var myTimeout, myInterval; // blank variables

myTimeout = setTimeout(function(){ alert('Hello'); }, 5000); // After 5 seconds, alert 'Hello'
myInterval = setInterval(function(){ alert('Hi there'); }, 10000); // Every 10 seconds, alert 'Hi there'
//
//

Now in this example, I set up a function instance right in the timeout and interval assignments. You can also choose to to reference a function (not to be confused with a function call, which they dislike but you can work around), but for the sake of keeping my examples small I am using a function instance.

Basically setTimeout will call the function once when the timer (set in milliseconds) ticks, whereas setInterval will call the function every time the timer ticks. The reason You store them in variables is so you can use the clearTimeout and clearInterval functions. These are supposed to remove the timeout or interval from existence, stopping the functionality from happening (or happening again, whichever).

//
//
var myTimeout, myInterval; // blank variables

myTimeout = setTimeout(function(){ alert('Hello'); }, 5000); // After 5 seconds, alert 'Hello'
myInterval = setInterval(function(){ alert('Hi there'); }, 10000); // Every 10 seconds, alert 'Hi there'

clearTimeout(myTimeout); // kills the timeout, so it will never fire off
clearInterval (myInterval); //kills the interval, so it will never fire off.
//
//

Given this information, you may think that you can now go and do loads of timed stuff care-free! Well no, you can’t. You see I ran into an… oddity with setInterval and setTimeout. I couldn’t find any documentation showing this quirk, hence this blog post.

How I found the issue

So today, a colleague found a bug with a plugin I wrote. It’s a plugin that fades between slides. Pretty straight-forward. It has options to enable autoPlay, render paging buttons, etc. The autoplay functionality – that is, rotating between the slides – is being handled by setInterval.

Basically when it starts, I set an interval to rotate. If you skip slides (using a navigation) it stops the slider by clearing the interval. In theory, that is. Apparently somewhere down the line it stopped working, and I had to go hacking through the code to figure out what the hell was going on. As it works out I’ve found a rather odd issue with setInterval and setTimeout.

The issue manifested

Code:

//
//
var myInterval;

function alertOne() {
	alert('One');
}

function alertTwo() {
	alert('Two');
}

myInterval = setInterval(alertOne, 2000);
myInterval = setInterval(alertTwo, 3000);
//
//

<!-- snip -->
<a href="javascript:clearInterval(myInterval);">Kill stuff</a>
<!-- snip -->

Now given the idea of how variables should work, if you were to run this code, you would expect the first interval call to be overwritten by the second. That’s what I expected anyway. As it turns out, his is not the case. You see apparently it actually stacks the calls into the variable. Sort of like an array, but without any of the actual array properties or functionality.

Given that it stacks them, you would think that the clearInterval on the anchor would then remove both intervals. I mean they’re both attached to the variable, so it stands to reason that clearing the variable with clearInterval would sort it out right? Nope! It actually only clears the last interval set to it.

Don’t believe me? run it yourself, or click here for a running example. So I started trying to find ways of totally clearing it.

How about setting the variable to null? That won’t work because it treats the variable as a function reference, and not an instance of the interval system.

What about stacking the clearIntervals? That doesn’t work either. It only ever clears the last one that was assigned. The rest seem to become buried, and I haven’t found a way to surface them.

Oh and everything I just said about setInterval here? It also applies to setTimeout. I’m using setInterval though, because at least a timeout ends after the first call. That is, unless you made a self-replicating timeout function. You may as well use setInterval at that point unless you actually need to change the amount of time between calls, or you have external flags (see further down for an explanation of this).

So basically if you assign more than one interval or timeout to a variable, you’re screwed. You can’t clear them all with clearInterval, you can’t null the variable as it’s just a reference, and you can’t stack clearIntervals, because it doesn’t surface the previous assignments, even though they continue to run.

Solution?

Sadly there’s no sweet fix for this that I’ve found. Basically if you’re going to be using setInterval, make damned sure you use clearInterval before setting it again. If you don’t, you bury the old intervals and there’s no way to stop them from continuing..

A gross but possible solution would be to use a self-replicating setTimeout function that had an external flag that it could use to halt it’s loop.

Here’s a basic example:

//
//
var counter = 1;
var myTimeout;

function loopFunction () {
	if (counter < 5) {
		counter++;
		myTimeout = setTimeout(loopFunction, 5000);
	}
}

myTimeout = setTimeout(loopFunction, 50000);
//
//

If you do that, at least there’s a way to stop buried Timeouts. You don’t get such a luxury with setInterval.

This took me far too much time to figure out today, and either I missed a rather important class in JavaScript school* or not everyone knows about this. I went looking on the Googles, but didn’t come up with anything outlining the dangers of setInterval. Hopefully this will help someone out there. At the very least it’ll be a reminder to me to pay more attention when I use it.

* I don’t think there is an actual JavaScript school, even though that would be very, very useful.

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.

The problem

Macs render fonts amazingly out of the box. The webkit engine comes with a special property for font-smoothing (called -webkit-font-smoothing) that is used in tandem with this. These properties do affect the PC versions of Webkit browsers, but not quite. For more info on this css property, read this article, which explains it in great detail.

For all the other engines (excluding the recently released Firefox 4, where fonts look mostly awesome), non-optimized fonts will look ragged because they aren’t aliased at all. Think of what the font looks like on ie6 (for those that can remember). This is what happens. the Cleartype property that Windows applies doesn’t actually work on these fonts.

The fix

After some playing around, I’ve come up with a fix, though it does come with some caveats that I will outline after.

/*The following example assumes the selector already has the custom font applied to it.*/

.customFontSelector {
color:#000000; /* you can use rgb as well */
text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.1); /* same color as the normal color item */
filter: dropshadow(color:#000000, offx=0, offy=0); /* color needs to be a hex, near as i can tell */
/* sometimes the shadow actually needs to be the background color. It seems a bit variable*/
-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; /*stops mac 'thick font' syndrome */

How this works:

Basically you make a super tiny, light shadow around your text that will simulate the anti-aliasing that the mac does. The filter: dropshadow will allow the font to render more smoothly in IE. The webkit-font-smoothing stops fonts from ending up fat due to the macs sub-pixel anti-aliasing in addition to a shadow.

Caveats

• The ie fix works most of the time. Far better on solid backgrounds. It can (but doesn’t always) halo if you put it on transparent-background-ed items. Even if that item is in a container that has a background color, it can halo. The fix is to put a background color on the element itself (not every layout will allow for this, obviously)
• This doesn’t work well on small font-sizes. In fact, this will just cause your small fonts to look blurry and terrible. This fix works best for headings or other larger font-size items.
• It also seems to have a problem with certain thin fonts. Not all thin fonts, just enough to screw with you.

So yeah, this isn’t the be all and end all solution. It does however work in a variety of cases, and like so many other fixes on the net, you have to know when to use them and when not to. The best fix for web fonts is, really, to use a web font that has been tailored for the web. At the very least a font that has had a lot of attention given to its hinting.

As always I welcome discussion, and ways to improve on this technique.

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.

Synopsis

Stacking, by Double Fine Productions takes place in a semi-russian universe where everyone is a russian stacking doll. I have no idea how they breed or anything, but that’s just how it is.

Anyways, the story revolves around Charlie Blackmore, the tiniest of the Blackmore family; a family of chimney sweepers who’s motto is “Ain’t no mess we can’t address!” One day, their father comes in saying he’s been given a new job for The Baron, and that their money troubles are over. Sadly though, the Baron is a bastard and instead kidnaps your father. The rest of your family goes to get him back, and are subsequently kidnapped. The Baron’s men then come for your mom and Charlie, but opt to leave him behind since he’s so small. Apparently Charlie’s no use to them. This makes no sense, given there are many Charlie-sized holes in the areas that would be a perfect fit for him.

I totally meant that pun. I am un repuntant.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now this sound’s like a terrible situation for wee Charlie to be in, but he has an ability that is, under normal circumstances, terrifying. Charlie can hop into a larger doll (one size up) and take them over and use their abilities. They can then stack them into the next step up, etc.

Using this ability, Charlie works through different parts of the Stacking world, freeing his family as well as ending child-labour and ruining the Evil Baron’s plans.

Gameplay

Stacking is basically a situational puzzle game, using the skills of the other dolls around you to overcome challenges. Most of these challenges are story-driven, and come with a guilt-free hint system that will basically spell things out for you if you’re totally lost. Each challenge has more than one solution, and it’s neat to see what ones you can come up with on your own. Some are less obvious than others.

The mechanics are polished, which is good considering how simple they are. I’d be pretty upset if the controls were jerky in a game as straight-forward as Stacking is. I found the follow camera to be a bit wonky at points, but overall worked fairly well. performable actions are in the top right of the screen at all times, which is helpful for telling you when you can/cannot perform things like stacking, talking, etc.

The level designs are cute bordering on whimsical, and utterly non-threatening. The levels are generally sprawling, but very linear. Stacking does a lot of hand-holding if you want to just go through the motions of finishing the game. If you get lost, there’s even a button to point you in the direction you need to go.

As for extras, Stacking comes with two options:

Collectable Dolls

In every level, there are a number of unique dolls that you can collect by stacking into them. These dolls are, in many cases, the ones you will need to use to get through most of the challenges, so you will end up collecting a good portion of them as you go along. There are also dolls that have a special ability that will make any unique dolls in the area glow.

Like I said, there’s a lot of hand holding.

Hijinks

These ones are far less obvious. The names of many of the hijinks are vague or just straight-up unhelpful. The only saving grace is that they all have to do with using a certain dolls ability on something or someone a number of times. When you get one the first time, the hijinks is registered in the menu and you then find out what you actually have to do.

Basically if you stack into every doll, and use it’s ability on a man, a woman, and a child, you’ll probably find most of them. I won’t blame anyone for using a guide for these though. Otherwise they could be quite a time-drain.

Graphics

Stacking is a cute-looking game. That translates into ‘not super high-def’. Does that mean the graphics are poor? Far from, but for those out there that dool over things like the new Crysis 2 demo, Stacking will be a bit underwhelming, visually. Having said that, there are many little details that made me smile; paintings on walls, the little russian-doll motifs worked into carpets and wallpapers, etc. It’s in the details that this game shines, graphically. Special detail has been given to the dolls themselves, which I’m sure is a hat tip to the intricate designs you will find on more traditional matryoshka dolls.

The videos are also an interesting change. They’re all shot in a silent movie format. They look gritty, they’re all shot to a tinkling piano score that’s very appropriate for the supposed timeframe of the game, and they even have the interruption of video to have the speech text displayed as a black and white panel.

Issues

Nothing major with Stacking, really. It’s not trying to do too much in terms of inovation, which could be considered a problem. The linear nature of the main storyline will be a turn-off for those that prefer a huge open-ended world.

I think that Stacking, much like Costume Quest, is amied more at people (or children) that are new to the genre (or gaming in general), as opposed to the hardcore gamers. This will stop some from purchasing it, which is a shame, given how much fun it really is to play and explore. It can be a bit boring if you’re used to more complex puzzle games, but that’s more of a personal preference for masochism.

A major hang-up I had with Stacking was an inability to skip some of the key videos. I’m aware that they did this so that you knew what was going on, but If you are good at understanding what’s going on well ahead of the script, these videos are a slow torture.

My biggest issue is that Stacking is pretty short for it’s cost. I’m pretty sure I clocked about 6 hours on Stacking (that includes doing all of the extras) and finished. I know it’s an XBL game and all, but that’s pretty damned short. This is doubly true when you’re paying 1200 microsoft points for it. If it’d been priced at the more normal 800 points, I probably wouldn’t have made it a point, but it’s not and so I am.

Overall

Stacking is fun. Stacking is cute. Stacking has some interesting game mechanics. It won’t blow your mind, but I’m sure no one would outwardly dislike it. If you can’t find something else to spend 1200 Microsoft points on, you won’t go too wrong dropping them on Stacking. I’d suggest waiting for a sale though.

6.5/10

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.

Now some of those are fairly straight forward: an accordion is just a simple animate of a content section, repeat per title; tabs? Same deal. So you might be pretty inclined to just write the script adhoc on a project to project basis, copy and pasting it as you go. We were doing that at my work when I started on, but I found that we kept on having to add something, remove something, add hooks at certain points etc. In some cases we used someone else’s plugin to do these things, but we ran into some issues when it came to having to tweak the plugin for our needs.

As I was hired on as the senior front-ender, I was given the task of trying to help simplify things in our working process. This required me to dive right into plugin development, because one spot we were spending a lot of time was reinventing the wheel project to project. Even more time was spent debugging random plugins, or lashing them together.

As my place of employment works with jQuery, I wanted to develop something that could be maintained in-house, and would be a good starting point for repeating functionality. I ended up developing a jQuery plugin template, which I am sharing today.

Now, while I can’t feature the plugins I’ve made for my work here on my site (I’m pretty sure my they’d be less than impressed with that), I feel it’s fairly safe to distribute this template (boiler plate?) to the internets. It’s a compilation of a couple tutorials, as well as my own exploration into javascript. I’d be more than happy to give credit where it’s due, but I cannot remember where the heck I got some of the snippets I integrated. If anyone reading this happens to know, leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to give said credit.

Below you will find my jQuery plugin template code in it’s entirety. I’m open to suggestions on how to improve it, so feel free to comment.

/*
*
    Name:      my.blank.plugin.js
    Purpose:   Shell to use for jQuery plugins
*/
(function ($) {
    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR PLUGIN
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin = function (options, i) {
        // This handles multiple elements (like a class selector)
        if (this.length > 1) {
            var a = new Array();
            this.each(
                function (i) {
                    a.push($(this).myPlugin(options, i));
                });
            return a;
        }
        var opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);

        /* PUBLIC FUNCTIONS */

        /* reInit is a flag that you can pass in case you don't
           want to remove everything during the destroy phase. */
        this.Destroy = function (reInit) {
            var container = this;
            var reInit = (reInit != undefined) ? reInit : false;
            $(container).removeData("myPlugin");
            // this removes the flag so we can re-initialize
        };

        this.Update = function (options) {
            opts = null;
            opts = $.extend({}, $().myPlugin.defaults, options);
            this.Destroy(true);
            return this.Create();
        };

        /* iteration will give you the index of the item
           in the selection. If not part of a loop, I'm
           prett sure this will be null. You've been warned. */
        this.Create = function (iteration) {

            // this stops double initialization
            if ($(container).data("myPlugin") == true)
                return this;

            // call a function before you do anything
            if (opts.beforeCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.beforeCreateFunction))
                opts.beforeCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

             // reference to the object you're manipulating. To jQuery it, use $(container).
            var container = this;
            /* Failing that, you could just use 'this' without the var declaration,
               but if you are doing a lot of child looping, you'll be glad to have
               a reference to the target object. Also, performance improvements! */

            ////////////////////
            // DO STUFF HERE
            ////////////////////

            // Set a flag to show that this element has been plugin'd
            $(container).data("myPlugin", true);

            // call a function after you've initialized your plugin
            if (opts.afterCreateFunction != null && $.isFunction(opts.afterCreateFunction))
                opts.afterCreateFunction(targetSection, opts);

            /* Make sure to return, otherwise you can't store the element in a varaible,
               which means you can't use any of the plubic functions (you may not need
               them, but it's still good practice.) */
            return this;
        };

        /* Example of a public function, this can be used if you store
           this object in a variable.

           e.g. var foo = $("#target").myPlugin();
                foo.PublicFunction();
        */

        this.PublicFunction = function () {
            // do something
            myPrivatefunction();
        };

        /* PRIVATE FUNCTIONS */

        /* These aren't accessibly externally, and so can only
           be called from within the enclosure code. */

        function myPrivatefunction() { };

        /* arguably, you could wrap your private (or public)
        functions in an array such as the following: */

        // Private helper functions
        helper = {
            firstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            secondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        //Public helper functions
        this.Helper = {
            FirstHelper: function () { /* do something */ },
            SecondHelper: function (somevalue) { /* do something with the variable passed in */ }
        };

        /* Personally, I don't see the point of doing this for
           anything OTHER than helper functions, I could, and
           probably am, wrong here... or at least ignorant. */

        // Finally
        return this.Create(i);
    };

    // DONT FORGET TO NAME YOUR DEFAULTS WITH THE SAME NAME
    jQuery.fn.myPlugin.defaults = {
        foo: "bar",
        something: "else",

        // Remember: these are function _references_ not function calls
        beforeCreateFunction: null,
        afterCreateFunction: null
    };
})(jQuery);

I’ve tried to comment the hell out of the code, so that it’s as straight-forward as possible. I assume that anyone that uses this will strip out the comments, as well as any of the functionality that isn’t required.

Please feel free to use this, but If you’d be so kind as to give me credit, that’d be swell. I can’t force you, but we’re all friends out here, aren’t we?

However, there are a bunch of legitimately interesting movies coming out right now. So much so that I am willing to go to the movie theaters to watch them (though I’ll admit that this decision is assisted heavily by the 2 for 1 deal I can get every wednesday).

One such movie that has just come out here in the UK is Black Swan, staring the ever impressive (to me, anyways) Natalie Portman, and the spunky Mila Kunis who shocked me with an actual acting ability. Classed as a psychological thriller, Black Swan draws you in, and then effectively horrifies you on any number of levels for most of the film. For those too lazy to read the rest of this review, I will leave you with the words I uttered when the credits began to roll:

“Holy shit… Holy. Shit.

Synopsis

Nina, played by Portman, is a ballerina at a large theatre house in the city she lives in (both, as near as I can tell are unmentioned). She’s a dedicated performer that hopes to become the next leading lady in the house’s production of Swan Lake. Her mother, played terrifyingly well by Barbara Hershey, is a failed ballerina that has in turn focused all of her energy, hopes, and dreams into Portman’s career. So much so that their relationship is far from healthy.

As the movie progresses, Nina wins the role but is told that she must be both the White swan – fragile, beautiful, a ‘virgin’ – and the black swan – evil, manipulative, seductive – which is a mental state that Nina cannot easily summon. This is due to her borderline insane home life that has cocooned her in a semi-child-like life and has stunted her sexually. She starts noticing scratches on her back, and starts to see a darker version of her as she walks around or looks in mirrors.

Then you have Lily, played by Kunis, who is for all intents and purposes, Ninas opposite. She’s sexy, she’s carefree, a rebel, and a dancer that doesn’t conform to perfection, but flows naturally to the music and as such can lose herself in the moment. Effectively everything Nina is not. They strike up an odd friendship that just goes all over the place. There is a shockingly passionate scene between the two in the film, but when Nina confronts Lily about it, Lily denies it ever happening. This adds weight to Ninas worries that she’s losing her mind, and her paranoia goes through the roof.

As the movie nears the end, Nina distrusts Lily, thinking that Lily is trying to steal her spot as the Swan Queen. As all this is happening the movie gets more and more surreal, with Nina visually losing her mind, not understanding what is going on or even why. Her personality becomes more erratic, and she’s terrified of what’s happening to her.

The movie climaxes with Nina taking her spot as the Swan Queen – much to the chagrin of Lily. As the white swan, she’s nervous and actually blunders one of the scenes. There’s an altercation with Lily where Lily is killed before the show, but at intermission we find out that she’s not dead at all. This confuses Nina, but only for a moment before she transforms herself into the black swan. She dances ‘perfectly’, transforming on stage into what appears to be a human swan. In actuality no such thing happens, but this is what Nina sees.

The end of the movie is very much the same as the play in which the movie surrounds itself with. She embraces the role, and as she says she was ‘perfect.’ This carries so much gravitas, and caused me to go slack-jawed from the power of its delivery.

What I liked

Oh where to start? I could gush for a very long time about Black Swan, but I’ll do my best to stay at least somewhat objective about it.

The acting

Everyone in Black Swan holds their own. The casting was shockingly well done, with everyone managing to click. Portman, Kunis, Hershey, and Vincent Cassel do an utterly amazing job of making you give a shit about the story. Everyone plays their part perfectly; Portman plays the insecure and fragile ballet dancer that just wants to be perfect; Hershey plays an unstable mother with control issues stunningly; Kunis plays what is probably an easy role for her as the sultry, carefree temptress; and Cassel does an amazing job of playing the manipulative, greedy, semi-antagonist.

The chemistry of everyone on screen is explosive. Each direct relationship works perfectly. Real cudos should be given to Natalie Portman, who does an amazing job throughout the whole film. While all the supporting actors work perfectly in their roles, Portman does a good portion of the movie solo. This is a hard thing for any actor to do, let alone one that must demonstrate a degrading psyche with bouts of paranoia and an emerging split-personality. Tack that onto the fact that this girl is fragile in so many other ways, and you are left with a performance that will leave you awed.

The music

You never really realize where some scores are from until it’s spelled out for you. In this case, pretty much all of the music is pulled directly from Swan Lake itself. The tone and flow of the movie fit unsettlingly well with the scores chosen. While many of the scenes in the movie can hold their own without music, the accompaniment of scores from the ballet do so much to help underscore the joy of some scenes, the adulation of others, and the reserved , crushing sadness of the rest. Whoever set up the score for this movie deserves a medal.

The cinematography

This is probably the first film I’ve watched that does a follow-cam to good effect. A good portion of the film is shot over Nina’s shoulder. This happens more and more the further along the movie you go. The technique is used to brilliant effect, and the entire time it’s happening you feel like you’re literally watching her from over her shoulder. This in turn makes her seem uncomfortable to the watcher. There are scenes that are shot in this method where you can hear Ninas breathing, and mild panic-y grunts as she dances trying not to step out of perfection. Sounds are ramped up during many of these scenes so that you really get a feel for how she’s feeling.

Other shots are done with an experts eye. Mirrors are featured heavily throughout the film, and there are many shots that take full advantage of them. Many of the special effects applied are through these mirrors, and of them, most are subtle. If you’re not looking at the right spot at the right time, you can actually miss some of the more unnerving elements of a scene. Many scenes will have just a moment of something off-putting: a face in the mirror glancing in the wrong direction; a ripple in Ninas skin texture; the off glances; the list goes on.

Symbolism

Oh man. Ohhh man. If I was in university for say, psychology or mental illness or occult studies or something, this movie would have made me cream myself. There are layers and layers to this movie that you could spend hours ripping apart and analyzing. You’ve got the creepy one-on-one relationships, Nina’s youthful room, the scratches, the use of mirrors, the self-visualizing Nina does, the sexy-time scenes, the eyes, the use of blood, and a billion other things that I won’t bother listing.

What impresses me about these though is not so much that they’re strewn throughout the movie, but that they’re applied with such academic perfection, that in many cases you don’t even realize what’s going on unless you’re looking. Yet the fact that they’re there affects your interaction with the movie regardless of your noticing them or not.

The movie operates on so many levels that it actually took me a good while of thinking about it to really start to understand just how much was truly going on. I mean on the surface, the plot is not dissimilar to Swan Lake (how meta), but under that there are layers of emotion and concepts that the movie is trying to convey to the user. The strain of being in Ninas position, the stress her mother puts on her, the pressure she gets from Thomas Leroy (Cassel), this list goes on and on as well. Under all that, the movie opts to explore mor basic human nature and needs. Seriously there’s enough going on in this movie to let you analyze it for days.

What I disliked

Shockingly little ends up in this section. Other than a couple of odd bits of CG use that just didn’t look as polished as they could have been, I’ve got no real complaints about Black Swan. I wish there was more to say about what fell short with this movie, but honestly there’s nothing. The only thing I could think to mention is some people seem to dislike Portman for no reason, and seem to transfer that dislike over to the movie itself. This is a damned shame, but people are allowed to do that.

A word of caution

Black Swan is fucked up. I don’t mean that in a zombie-fest sort of way, or in a Chucky sort of way. I mean fucked up on a truly disturbing and upsetting  level. A common phrase to use for Black Swan is that it is ‘difficult to watch.’ This is very true. Black Swan pulls no punches, and while some movies love to roll around in the field of your personal discomfort (laughing all the way), this movie does not. It makes you uncomfortable because you need to be to really get into this movie. Black swan takes no pleasure in upsetting you, but does it so that you can understand (or at least try to) just how tortured Nina is.

If you dislike movies with a lot of thinking, movies with deeply unsettling themes, or scenes of people being sort-of taken advantage of, you will not like Black Swan. Please trust me when I say that this movie will not be for you, and you will be angry at yourself, the movie, and its creators if you go to watch it.

Black Swan is fucked up. It’s amazingly fucked up, but it’s fucked up all the same.

Overall

I could go on and on about Black Swan. It’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, and will easily land itself in my favourites list.

The acting was stunning, the score was perfect, the technical aspects were spot on, and there was enough content to read into that could keep my chronically over-analyzing brain happy for a long time. It’s screwed up, it’s dark, it’s revealing, and it’s a work of art.

9/10