I used to stay as far away from platformers as I could, given that my ability in them scored somewhere in the negatives. Every time I would try one, I’d get about 4 levels in, and then start to hate myself. It’s really not a pretty sight. Give me turn-based games and experiences points, that’s what I say!

Of course to every rule there is an exception, and Super Princess Peach is, shockingly, one of those exceptions.

Synopsis

Like all Super Mario games (and all Mario game spin-offs) the story is fairly straight-forward. Bowser has opted this time to capture Mario and Luigi in lieu of the Princess. I can only assume that he did this so that he could actually have a chance at ruling over the LSD-enabling countryside. Of course, Peach decides to step up and prove that breasts are no reason not to kick the shit out of Bowser.

Of course you have to go around correcting the entire countryside first. ‘Cause you know, that’s just how these games roll.

The game operates on the basic level-trolling principles that have worked so well in the previous incarnations, with a couple twists. On top of going through all 48 levels (40, excluding boss fights) you can also find toads, who are lost in the worlds. You can also find mini-games, music notes (which allow you to listen to songs in the game menu), and spend your money in The Shop.

That’s right, there’s only one shop. Dude much be loaded.

Mechanics

Super Princess Peach introduces a couple unique aspects to the platform-genre that really tickle my fancy. Peach, given that she is a princess, is genetically more robust than her Italian pipe-cleaner. Here’s a quick run-down of her genetic enhancements:

• Happiness: Peach gets so damned happy that she starts to float in a cyclone. An added benefit is that you can actually fly with this ability, so if you’re like me and prone to cliff jumping, you can save your ass. There are limitations to this ability such as active flying eats away at your “Flow” – Magic, to the rest of the world – and there are certain points where you will be unable to fly, forcing you to rethink your strategy.
• Sadness: Peach defies all known physical facts, and starts crying our geysers from her eyes. If you’ve ever seen a kids anime where a girl cries waterfalls, you know what this looks like. Added perks to this mode are running like a bat out of hell, and watering plants into massive vine-trees of doom. There are points in the game that require you to use this ability, and quickly.
• Anger: Channeling all those times that Peach’s father (does she even have parents?) never gave her that jewel-encrusted pony, Peach turns into the Human Tourch. She walks slowly, stomps the ground whenever she jumps (good for knocking everyone on their ass), and nothing can touch you. Stomping, like flying, eats up more magic when used. Also, fire and wood don’t mix.
• Joy: Not to be mistaken for happiness, Joy heals the Princess, so long as she doesn’t get assauted by any enemies. This mode simply transforms magic into health. Good when you are in dire need of life. This mode is automatically turned off when enemies hit you, but not when you pick up/consume them.

These abilities add to the game by providing obvious puzzle elements (fire can light lanterns, water make plants grow, wind makes smoke dissipate, etc. etc.), as well as giving the user a couple more options in dealing with situations.

I mentioned earlier the term “Flow”. Flow is, as previously stated, your magic bar. Your magical umberella can consume enemies to refill your magic bar, or you can find gems to do the same thing. This allows you to decide whether to bathe in the blood of your enemies, or just flat out consume them wholly. Morbid when you really sti and think about it.

Oh yes, did I mention you have a magical umberella? Yes apparently a little boy was transformed into a magical umberella, and through certain happenstances, landed in the hands of Princes Peach. Peach uses this umberella for a variety of things including, but not limited to: Bashing enemies, consuming enemies, floating in the air, coasting in water, and throwing things around. She really has no regard for the poor umberella, which leads me to think that Princess Peach strongly believes in the caste system.

Bitch.

Overall

Overall, it’s actually a pretty solid play through. The nice/terrible part is that after you’ve beat the game the first time through, you are given 3 new levels (per section, so 24 more levels) that you can access by defeating all of the bosses, excluding Bowser, a second time. It doesn’t matter if you’ve beaten them 100 times, once you’ve defeated Bowser, you have to go back and fight the other bosses to unlock the additional levels. In order to find everything in the game (music notes, mini games, etc) you have to play all of the original levels twice (once before and after pre-game) as well as the 24 new levels. If you add it all up, that’s a total of 119 levels of play. That’s a lot of game play for a DS game.

I mostly enjoyed this game, though I could go my entire gaming life without ever having to do another underwater mario level. I hate those levels simply because you drift, and gernally this means you drift into things that want to kill you. Also, you can’t use your abilities while under water. Keep that in mind.

It’s not overly difficult, and the learning curve is basically spelled out for you. Just take it one level at a time, and upgrade as you go along. The more Flow you have, the better off you’ll be. Other than that, just enjoy the game for what it is: A cheerful, straight-forward platforming game. No mind-bending puzzles, no cryptic under/overtones, just a smiling peach beating the hell out of the native population. A game that you can turn on, play through a 4 minute level, and then turn off. Lends itself heavily towards small bursts rather than long-haul style game play.

Cute, straight-forward, and with enough originality to give it some flare.

7/10

Don’t even get me started on the side-quest goldmine that it was. It had it’s own “Internet” that came with spam, conspiracy theories, and hackable government systems. It had a solid story line, an excellent battle system, and some decent (for the time) graphics.

Front Mission DS (which apparently is a re-release of the original) has none of these things. Well okay, not none per say, but far less than my first experience. It did manage to be just as frustrating though, so that’s something.

So when I found out that Front Mission was coming out for the DS, I nearly wet myself in anticipation. As previously stated, I had good experiences with the series, so I was all hot and bothered over the idea of a portable version that could provide me hours of entertainment on my – until recently – dormant DS. After finally playing through it, I think I can actually give an unbiased review of the game.

Well, probably can in any case.

Synopsis

Piloting Mechs – Wanzers in the Front Mission universe – the goal of the game is to work your way through increasingly difficult battles by strategically killing everything without dying. It sounds far more simple than it is.

Like every Front Mission I’ve played (3, 4, and now this version) there are two story lines in Front Mission DS. The first is for “new” players, and you are in control of one Royd Clive. Long story short, he becomes the leader of a band of mercs who work for one of two waring factions (the O.C.U.). As the game progresses, Royd realizes that past events are not all they’ve added up to be, and eventually goes on a vendetta to get his answers.

He’s a little bit of a whiner, and I had serious troubles connecting to him. The whole time it feels like he needs a good slap and to grow a pair. Yes, I’m aware that he’s part of an elite killing squad of mercs, working for the army. You can still be a sissy when you have a gun.

Anyways, his claims are verified, and you then have the uphill battle of getting to the finale in order to fight the hidden evil forces. Not that you really have to guess to hard at who’s pulling strings; the game practically forces it into your brain.

Now the second story arc, that’s a different story (see what I did there?). In this instance you play the roll of Black Ops. Seargent Kevin Greenfield. After an unfortunate pang of puppy-dog love, he’s discharged from his position, and is sent into the field as part of the U.C.S. Scout Team. As the story works its way forward, you are given additional characters – cannon fodder, as I called them – to bolster your ranks. Unlike the first story, where everyone is trying to win the spotlight, the second scenario focuses directly on Kevin, and everyone else just plays a part to support him. He ends up trying to bring down a corrupt government, only to fail and be tried for treason. That’s not the end of the story, but I’ll leave it there for now.

Now this is a man I can pretend to be! He’s got character, he’s got soul, he gets some good, solid revenge in his story arc. He even loses the woman he loves (more than once). This story grabbed my by the neck and forced me to play through it, which hurt because the second story is for “advanced” players.

Basically, “advanced” players is a fancy way of saying “insane odds” and “completely irrationally difficult.” You get half as many units, and you fight twice as many. All. The. Time. One map I played had 4 of my men against no less that 16 or 17 enemy units. That requires some top-notch organization let me tell you.

Mechanics

This section could get terribly long, should I let myself ramble. I’ll try and keep my rantings to a minimum here, okay?

The stylus is useless. You can use it, but much like one can stick ones hand into an operating blender it brings forth the old adage: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

So there’s no Internet in this version. Not something I’m terribly sad about, but the whole Net thing really added another layer to the overall story. It allowed the user to go out and find so many more tidbits of information that you could live without, but made sweeter by knowing.

The battle mechanics are far simpler than those of later versions. You don’t need to worry about the direction you’re facing, and hiding behind buildings does not provide additional cover. All cover is calculated on your dodging ability, and the tile your unit is on. Part of me loved this, and a part of me really missed it. They’ve also dropped many of the skills that you can acquire throughout the game, as well as who can learn what skill. Not everyone can actually be an effective killing machine (they make for good repair drones though).

The battles take just as long as they always did – minimum of 15 minutes, maximum of 1.5 hours – and are just as infuriating as they always were. It’s not uncommon to lose a battle without knowing why or how, but I’ve managed to distill it down to three possible reasons:

1. Your main character(s) died. Everyone else can eject just fine, but God help you should your main character have to try and eject.
2. You ran out of time. A few of the missions require you to do something along the lines of “Kill X by Y.” very straightforward.
3. Someone got away/got to a point they shouldn’t have.  A few of the missions require you to stop people from getting to certain points on the map. These are the hardest in my opinion.

The weapons system has been toned down as well as altered for this instance of the series. Rifles don’t shoot over long distances, making them effectively pointless. Shotguns only fire one shot (instead of, you know, a spread) making them almost useless. Their saving grace is that the have a 98% hit rating. Rockets can win an entire scenario if you upgrade them enough. Machine guns can win an entire scenario of you upgrade them enough. Melee weapons are in shockingly short supply.

On top of that, you don’t upgrade a proficiency in “shotgun” or “machine gun” anymore. Now you just get points in “melee” or “short.” This made the diversifying player in me weep. You no longer need specialist units; set everyone up with the exact same rig and go to town. It’s really a bit of a let down.

The virtual reality simulator doesn’t exist in the DS version, which makes upgrading your guys outside of battle an extreme chore. You’re stuck fighting in the arena, which doesn’t net you nearly enough experience to warrant it’s existence. The only reason the arena can possibly exist is because you can bet money on your pilot and win some cash. This is, sadly, a requirement for the first story. Upgrading 14 Wanzers gets bloody expensive, and you really do need to keep your parts up to snuff.

They game is not without some hope though; there are hidden missions (three to each scenario) that are actually somewhat difficult to find. They are usually the most challenging levels in the entire scenario, and usually the ones with the best payout. If you can find and complete them, you are rewarded with special Wanzer bodies that tend to be well worth the effort. If nothing else you get cash and experience for doing them.

Oh, and last but probably not least, after you defeat a scenario you can play through it again on a harder difficulty. Why would you do this? Other than bragging rights – if anybody listened – you get to start off with all of your characters having the same abilities as before. This means you can basically walk through three quarters of the game becoming even more powerful. There is also a secret mission (per scenario, I think) that you cannot access until your second play through. You can play through again and again, until you hit x10 difficulty, but why anyone would do that to themselves I have no idea. The option is there though.

Word from the Wise

I’m adding a special section here to give a couple tips to people who have decided to try their hand at Front Mission.

Choose a fighting style, and stick to it. I cannot stress this enough. You like rockets? Use them all the time and get your Long range leveled up. Eventually most of your units will learn Duel, which allows you to target body parts. Aim for the body for quick kills. Going short? give everyone machine guns and learn Speed and Duel. Those together can take down almost anything in one go.

Don’t use rifles, they’re not worth the money. It uses the “short” skill tree, but only fires one shot. I found things worked much better with a machine gun. More chances to hit, and they add up. If you simply must use a one shot weapon, wait for the shotgun; with a 98% hit ratio, it’s in your best interests to look them up.

Keep repair stuff on you. The computer has a knack for ganging up on your people, most of the time when they should be attacking others. Use this to your advantage, and keep repairing your cannon fodder for as long as you can. The longer they last, the longer your other units can go unimpeded.

Gang up on targets. Until your units learn how to kill something in one go, try and gang up effectively on units. If you can, pin them in so they’re sitting ducks. I tried to send my weaker units in packs so they could grind some experience while my one-shotters made quick work of everyone else.

Use the special Wanzers. Pick one of your pilots, and dump them into the special Wanzer models. You get most of them for completing secret missions (go look them up), and when used properly, they become killing machines. Enemies will speak shell-shocked stories to their pillows about the giant Wanzer that ripped them appart without showing a dent. They usually get picked on, so when you can make sure you have a repair buddy with them. Legends don’t make themselves you know.

Overall

It took me 20 hours to beat the first story. This was because of the upgrade/money requirements, and really took a chunk out of the whole “fun” aspect to it. It turned into grinding way too quickly. The second story was far more enjoyable and I worked through it in around 9 hours. I’m even tempted to play through the second story again.

It’s not as complex, diverse, or rewarding as other items in the series, but it did its job without too much complaint.

7/10

Having said that, with my school giving me far too much time off over the Christmas break, I managed to get my hands on a shiny new XBox 360. Granted that was a bit of a fiasco, in the end I landed me a couple of games. One of those games (obviously, I think, at this point) was LEGO Indiana Jones.

I recall my brother getting LEGO Star Wars, back when it came out. He was obsessed with it, and at the time I couldn’t really figure out why. Sure it was LEGO, which we were clinically addicted to growing up, but at the time I couldn’t see what the big deal was. Of course once I started playing LEGO Indiana Jones, my opinion has quite simply 180-ed. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that 180-ed is a term I can use.

Anyways.

First off, I’m an Indiana Jones fan. I have the movies, the old computer game, the hat, and for most of my impressionable youth Harrison Ford’s role was everything I wanted to be: Rugged, Ass-kicking, Girl-getting, but still smart. Hell he teaches at a University! The man got it all. Suffice it to say that I’m pretending about half of the 4th movie didn’t happen, and so my childhood hero is still fantastic and untarnished.

I think it’s safe for me to say that I’m going to be pretty critical of any game that is going to try and touch my memories. So how could LEGO Indiana jones possibly stand up to my childhood?

Pretty well, actually.

Now some things have to be taken into account here:

1. Each movie is broken down into 6 episodes, and so there is only so much of each movie that they can do. This results in a somewhat “Coles Notes” sort of effect. You get the overall flavour, but nuances are lost due to the constraints.
2. There is no dialogue. It’s like the ultimate mime performance. Each character has one of their signature sounds sort of dumbed down, distilled, and used as their only vocal response. Indy has a arrogant sounding grunt, girls all sound like owls (girly owls), and bad guys all sound menacing. Really straight forward.
3. Everything is made of LEGO. so a certain amount of detail has to be taken away. That isn’t to say that the scenery isn’t gorgeous, because it actually is.
4. It’s for kids. This means that some of the more blatantly violent scenes were removed (the propeller scene, the whole evil Indy heart thing, etc.) and any that aren’t removed are satirized to make them less horrible.
5. You can’t actually die. When you do, you just respawn right where you were and continue on your merry way.

Basically it’s a kids game that has something for everyone. Most of the puzzles are straightforward (with a few exceptions that had me swinging randomly at things hoping for increased clarity) which makes playing through the game a pretty linear experience. You are given some well-done cinematics at the start, middle, and end of most episodes, and it’s just difficult enough to keep you engaged. Each level takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 80 minutes to play through, depending on your skill level and attention to thoroughness. So you get a good amount of play time and enjoyment with a simple playthrough, but then there are the unlockables.

Oh the unlockables. I owe way too many headaches and my now impressive gaming arm to those damned unlockables.

Basically the unlockable extras require you to replay a level at least once to find things using characters that you couldn’t do in Story Mode. I say at least once because If you mess up, or are missing a required character during Free Play Mode, you’ll be going back again. Tack on the fact that after you get the unlockables, you still have to purchase them. This requires you to mine studs (money in the LEGO universe) until you hate yourself. On top of all that, you end up unlocking three more levels that you have to play through, all in an attempt to nail that 100% game completion.

Then you have all of the XBox Achievements, which require you to grind through such wonderful tasks as “swing across platforms with your whip 250 times” or “break 50 characters or objects using the scream and super scream ability” which is bugged. My personal favorite is “Oh it breaks the heart” which, as it turns out, you earn for breaking 20 glasses over LEGO peoples heads. Just cause I could I made sure to bust all of them over Indy’s head with Marion.

Authenticity has its places.

The other thing that irked me with the game were some of the useless mechanics that were included / weren’t tested properly. I can say with total confidence that there was not a single time when I needed to shimmy against a wall. Not once. So why give my that ability? All it does is force me to jump away from the wall, which could cause me to fall to my death.

Another issue I had was part of the learning curve that you aren’t really taught. The whole “lining up shots to hit people” thing is usually a make-or-break situation for games. And with LEGO Indy, it seems like they dropped the ball until I realized that they took all the hard stuff out of it. As long as you’re facing the right direction and close enough to bad guys, your little LEGO

hero will aim for you. Wish I had known about that at the start of the game.

And one more paragraph that I am reserving for the games A.I.. Enemies were annoyingly accurate with rockets, but other than that they were perfect. Just hard enough to challenge you, but not impossible to combat. I wish I could say the same for your companions. They never land a killing blow on anyone (forcing you to stop fighting whomever you were fighting to finish them), they seem to get caught on random objects or make insane leaps to try and catch up to you, and they get in the way since they are stupid and solid.

Having said that, the scripted portions (two person puzzle solving, etc.) was very well done and I have to give credit where it’s due. I’m also impressed with how the A.I. is smart enough in Free Play mode to switch to whatever character is required to keep up with you (Shorties come to mind).

Before I finish up I must also give credit to the sounds of the game. Though the sound of exploding LEGO people/objects/everything can get a little boring after a while, I have to give a round of applause to the music loops. They loop seamlessly, sound like the music from the movies, and really help make areas of the game feel way more engaging. The action music that kicks in during fights could have been a bit more varied, but still very well done.

So over all, I’m a fan of the game. My 100% status and having all of the achievements can attest to that. The music is solid, the “writing” as it were was very well done, and it kept me smiling the whole way through. The A.I. irritated me and somewhat clunky controls made me very angry at points (SPIRAL STAIRCASES WHY GOD WHY), but overall I enjoyed it.

7/10

Track Listing:

1. Fell In Love Without You
2. This Is For Real
3. It Had To Be You **
4. Last Night **
5. Calling All Cops
6. Can’t Finish What You Started **
7. The Conversation
8. Broken Heart **
9. Hello Helicopter **
10. Where I Belong **
11. Point Of Extinction
12. Antonia **
13. Even If It Kills Me

**Clear Favorites

Their newest album doesn’t really introduce much new, other than a couple slower piano tracks and a slightly softer feel. MCS know what their sound is and they don’t really seem to want to step away from it too much at the moment. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing, though I think that at this point you could start to find their music exhausting. My only complaint with MCS is that they sound pretty much the exact same every song. Sure you change up the words and the chords, but it’s all the same. This is also a great aspect though because you know what to expect and so a returning fan knows what they’re getting themselves into.

I also have to note that “Last Night” sounds eerily similar to The Starting Lines “Photography”.

My bitching aside, “Even If It Kills Me” is a solid album. I did notice that “Even If It Kills Me” seems to be a little slower, a little softer, and a little more toned down then its brethren, which I wasn’t fully expecting. I really liked the step into different territory by going with a couple piano-driven tracks, which bring about a totally different feel to what would be a purely typical album by them. The whole album seems a tad more reflective than the others, which is always a good thing in my mind.

I’m still not sure what they were trying to accomplish with this album. Did they mean to make it sound more reflective? Or was that just a side-effect of something else? Where did the piano-driven songs come from? Why the detachment from the norm? I have a feeling that the whole group just wanted to aim for something different, but didn’t want to step too far outside the comfort-zone that is their sound. I can’t blame them, but it does make what could have been an amazing (or disastrous) album, and settles it into the ‘pretty good’ category.

7/10

Chapters in books are usually given the cardnial numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 and so on. But I have decided to give my chapters prime numbers 2,3,5,7,11,13 and so on because I like prime numbers.
Excerpt from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The novel (the title is far too long to write for me) revolves around the near-normal life of Christopher John Francic Boone, who goes to a special school because he is different. One day he wakes up to find out that the neighbors dog has been killed with a pitchfork. Since he likes detectives like Sherlock Holmes, he decides to investigate into the murder. This is just one of the many facets that are explored throughout the book, and it really helps explore the world from a very different point of view.

The main character and psudo-author Christopher is, as far as my non-medical mind can tell, autistic. He can knows every prime number to 7,057, cannot stand being touched, register peoples facial expressions, or tell jokes. He has special needs and suffers from a certain level of Obsessive Compulsive Order as well if I could make the call. I’ve never read anything like it, and I’m glad that I have. Christopher has a way of taking ordinary things such as taking the train, and turns them into adventures full of strife and personal accomplishment. Things that are totally ordinary to us are giant stone walls that he has to overcome in order to figure things out.

Mark Haddon really seems to be channeling Douglas Coupland in this book. I know I shouldn’t compare the two because they are indeed different writers with different styles. What I am getting at is that there is a creativity in this book that I’d usually reserve for Coupland. It’s a refreshing change from the standard fare in the market, and I’m glad someone is stepping into the ring. I’m certain Mr. Haddon will go on to become a favorite to many, myself included.

The only real complaints I have about the book are:

It seems to end pretty suddenly, with the last chapters acting more like a montage than a proper ending. It pains me when authors rush endings of their books.

Sometimes the fact that Christopher doesn’t really have much in the ways of a writing prowess, the book can deviate and get somewhat drawn out with facts that have been established. Yes the train is loud and hurts your head. you don’t need paragraphs about it.

Other than those two points, it’s a solid book that I would recommend to anyone.

P.S. I love his website; I am sad that he hasn’t updated his blog in almost a year though.

7/10

1. Rise
2. Beauty Queen **
3. Let Me Out **
4. Carry On **
5. Find Me An Angel
6. I Am Who I Am
7. Home
8. Bad Dream **
9. Live
10. God By Another Name **
11. Harmonica In F (Interlude) **
12. Time **

**Clear Favorites

The whole album is very mellow, and I could almost class it as an ‘easy-listening’ but it doesn’t quite fit. The songs all feature a slightly slower beat, and there is emphases on strong musical usage. The singing is put almost as a second thought, much like the way that The Strokes perform their music. The music comes before the singing, but they don’t conflict. There is heavy usage of the piano, which stands out as the major player within most of the tracks. The lyrics are well-written and executed, and anyone can find meaning in them. The singing reminds me a lot of Coldplay or Snow Patrol, as they are a little grainy, and full of emotion.

The whole album has a near-sad feel to it, mainly due to contributions from certain tracks (Bad Dream and I Am Who I Am come to mind). As a result I don’t suggest listening to “Beta Male Fairytales” if you’re in a low, unless you feel like throwing yourself further into despair. It’s not even the lyrics that really do it, but the mood of the songs

One problem I have with the album (which is a problem with many albums of a similar nature) is that I can only listen to it once through before I start to get sick of it. This is not a CD that you can leave on repeat in the background, as it will start to feel very repetitive. Every track does start to feel like every other on the CD as you continue to listen to it. It’s definitely an album where favorites will be picked, and the other tracks skipped for the rest if their existence.

Overall, a very calm, almost sad album with heavy piano use and wonderful lyrics. It’s worth a listen to, even if you only come away with three songs that you like. In the end you’ll love those tracks dearly.

7/10

Track Listing:

1. Go To Hell**
2. Decimate
3. I’m Alright Now**
4. Song For The Road**
5. Train
6. St. Peter**
7. Nobody Tells Me What To Do
8. Requiem
9. … And So You Fell**

**Clear Favorites

This man feels the music, the likes of which I haven’t seen in a good long while. His music was heart-felt and well composed. Even when he did his song “State of the Union” which was more of a spoken poem and performance art, he obviously felt his music.

As a result, Songs for the Road is a solid album, though I wouldn’t class it as Indie, despite what iTunes tells me. Easy listening is closer to the truth, but I can assure you that the tracks will swing between calm and relaxing to bouncy to depressing with little regard for your personal feelings at the time of listening. As a lot of the music is done by him alone life, the alum is similarly toned down. Many of the tracks have nothing more than a guitar and a piano, though few feature violins and if I’m not mistaken in at least one instance a cello. His voice is enjoyable to listen to and his accent actually penetrates which is rare for English singers. I don’t know why but many English artists tend to lose their accent when they sing.

The album takes a couple listens to really get into, though I picked my favorites fairly quickly. I can appreciate the other tracks – Decimate sounds like it should be at the start or end of a sitcom – more for their lyrics, even when I feel that the music doesn’t suit my personal tastes. All of the tracks have obvious thought put into their message which really elevates them amongst many of the mainstream “heart” songs that are out on the top 40.

The whole album is a little moody, though that falls right in character with David Ford himself. The result is that you will either like where he’s coming from, or think he’s trash. I love him.

7/10

A little slow and pointless off the bat, it feels very typical for the first 20 minutes or so. Once it has been established that, yes, he is the only guy around, it gets to the good parts. I shouldn’t paint it so negatively, because I Am Legend does a wonderful job of building tension. I mean, you know shits gonna go down, and you know it’s going to be hardcore. The movie refuses to throw the viewer into it right off the bat though, and I have to respect that.

Suffering from flashbacks, Robert has a personal mission that seems to be the only thing really keeping him from going utterly insane. Packed with near silent and toned down shots where nothing is said (there’s no one to talk to!) that i felt were used very well in some instances, and felt awkward in others. On that note, a lot of the shots were exceptionally well done, and really helped set the mood. There were so many times that I thought something was going to burst out, B-movie style, and the film refused to go there. Way to go on that.

Will Smith does a very good job playing his role, and I can honestly say that he was a very good pick for the film. I can also say that he was super ripped, and scared the hell out of me with his rugged, survivalist, man-body. Girls will like this movie simply for him doing chin-ups. Guys will love the everything else.

Though I am sure it was unintentional the Alpha Male in the movie reminded me very much of Grendel in the CG’ed version of Beowulf. I’m not sure how that worked out, but sadly it really hurt my perception of the character and made it hard to take that part of the movie seriously. I’m sorry, but the hilarity I found in Beowulf really hurt the team on this one, and I can’t really hold it against the film itself and so I tried to avoid that when making my marking decision.

I will say (without giving anything away) that the ending really irked me. I can’t explain why without giving away the movie, but I got to be honest, I hate when that exact situation occurs. If or when you see the movie, you’ll at least know what I’m talking about. All in all though, I cannot rag on the movie that much. It is what it is, and that’s about it. It won’t win any awards, but it’s a good movie in the end.

7/10

Now They’re all gone. There’s only me left. I’m free, now.
I’m the last of my kind, and I miss Them. You’d think I’d forgive Them for what they did, so long ago. But I can’t. Somethings are unforgivable.
I was a Time Lord in exile.
Or was I an animal in a zoo?
Excerpt from Doctor Who: The Last Dodo

The Last Dodo takes place a bit in the future, where the Doctor and Martha show up on an artificial planet that features the rarest creatures in the universe. Literally, the last of (almost) every creature is kept in this massive Museum of the Last Ones. The Doctor is horror struck when he sees what’s going on, but before he can get into his tirade he is told that some of the creatures are going missing. Let the mystery begin.

Though still fairly typical as far as Doctor Who new adventures are going, this one was entertaining for a couple of reasons. One: it’s actually 3 adventures in one, though I cannot explain that without giving away too much of the book. Two: Half of the story is actually told from Martha’s point of view in a fourth-wall-breaking sort of way. Three: it contains one of the creepiest internal thoughts of the Doctors that I have ever read. And lastly, four: never have I been so impressed with someone writing from a creatures point of view then I have with this book. The author really makes you feel for the Dodo species.

As far as the new series go, this is the best one I’ve read.

7/10

The basis of this episode is that Sam & Max receive a wonderful present – The Maimtron 9000 – That tries to murder them while reciting 80′s music lyrics. This leads to finding out that it was a gift, sent to you by Santa, who by the way is toting a Red Rider hand-held machine gun. You take off to the North Pole, and the mayhem and hilarity ensues. The writing in this episode is just as good as the others… though to be honest I can’t say that they’re been any improvement. They’ve all pretty much sustained really solid scripting from the get go.

I’m happy to say that Telltale Games (who is made up of former LucasArts employees) have done an admirable job of reviving and progressing the Sam & Max universe. The voices still aren’t the originals, but the game makes up for it by having a stunningly twisted storyline, borderline-raunchy jokes, and the same feel as the original (that is to say, totally and wonderfully screwed up). There have been numerous improvements to the environment from the first season, including new areas, upgrading of old areas, new characters, and the ability to run over Torture me Elmurs. Let’s not forget that the game delves into temporal mechanics by creating self-fulfilling paradoxes. I’m always game for those.

I did feel that this episode was a little short and a little aimless. I got stuck at one point simply because I forgot about one item. ONE. Now granted, I could have turned the hint level right up and gotten help, but I really shouldn’t have to. These points really hurt what would have otherwise been fairly solid game play.

In the end, this was a purchase I cannot possibly regret. The game had me laughing out loud at least every 5 minutes, 1 minute if you count anything to do with Pimp le Car. it’s a little aimless, but I can forgive that given the quality of the game.

7/10

PS. For the fans out there who have a touch of the engineering bug, here is a tutorial on how to make your own Sam & Max Terror Level alert sign. I don’t have the drive to build it, but it seems like a pretty straight forward tutorial. Have fun!