Waiting…

Our house is caught in a sort of video game purgatory right now, and likely will be until October. I have no games to play the one time of the year when my attention isn’t focused on classes. The soonest we will see something new in the house will likely be September 16th. Then come November, we are going to be so bogged down in  new releases that nothing will be accomplished at all. Why did all the publishers decide to release everything this Fall? It’s as if 9 movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger opened on the same weekend. What do you even do in that situation? This:

Looking ahead, we have, in less than 60 days:

Force Unleashed Edit: pretty lackluster reviews from this one, perhaps I’ll start with a rental.

Fallout 3

Fable 2

Dead Space

Gears of War 2

Resistance 2

Motorstorm 2

At least we don’t have to deal with Wii games too. I suppose I should count my blessings…

Braid

I am about halfway through the game, its not especially long, but each world adds a more difficult gameplay element…for instance, I am in a world where every time I rewind time (the primary gameplay element), a clone of me appears that preforms what I did last. Other worlds will move forward in time as your character moves forward, and rewind time as you move backwards. It definitely makes for some interesting puzzles, and on the whole, the game is definitely worth checking out. Braid also has a really cool art style, not to mention a fantastic musical score.

While Braid is great in some areas, it lacks in others. Enemies will pop up in areas just be a nuisance, and they tend to make the puzzles overly challenging. I am all for mind numbing puzzles, but  sometimes there are just a ton of enemies around you that serve as nothing more than irritating obstacles.That is not mentioning the fact that you are sometimes presented with two doors and have one key. If you pick the wrong door, your key breaks, and you have to restart the entire level (Edit: Keys are unaffected by time, thus when they are broken, they are permanently broken). Stupid. I think it is okay in having difficult sections that you are forced to retry over and over to get right, but when the game throws them at you every few minutes, it gets pretty old.

All in all, Braid is absolutely worth the $15 purchase price.I can’t really look past the frustrating elements of Braid, however, and I don’t agree with all the hype its been getting. Its pretty good, but not great.

I’m a Shaaaark!

Here is my latest attempt, based on a similar design with a bear. Lol.

SurvivorMan vs Wild

So I’ve started watching Man vs Wild, hearing from everyone that Survivorman is in fact, the more badass show. After watching a bit of each show, I can definitely say I prefer Man vs Wild a lot more. Way higher production quality, dialogue, locations, and host.

I suppose the argument is that Man vs Wild got in a bit of trouble for “faking” certain scenes, though the only conclusive info about this deception is pretty minimal. In certain situations, such as when he was climbing down a waterfall, they concealed a climbing harness on him for safety. While this is admittedly a rather lame thing to do when you specifically tell audiences that you received no help, I can understand why they were concerned about safety. Whats more, Discovery then altered the disclaimer and show structure to “present situations” to the host to demonstrate survival skills.

This structure makes a lot of sense, and when its combined with a professional camera crew and a badass host, it creates an awesome show. Survivorman, on the other hand, is one guy with all the camera equipment with him, surviving on his own. This format may lend a bit more credibility to the show, but I think its ultimately the downfall. The host, Les Stroud, is a lot more conservative than Bear Grylls (Man vs Wild) in his survival techniques, and I almost felt like I was watching a PBS educational program on wildlife conservation.

While Les Stroud is completely unsupported, he doesn’t seem to go into nearly as remote or dangerous locations, so while there may be more credibility, the relative risk is lower than in Man Vs Wild.

So from an entertainment standpoint, Man vs Wild has Survivorman beat by a long shot, but in terms of show credibility, survivorman wins. Even so, I think Man vs Wild is simply the better show, and the support Bear recieves in particularly dangerous situations simply demonstrates the risk associated with survival.

Working with paths

So I’ve been playing around more with PS and illustrator paths, heres a first attempt… what do you think?