Sunday, July 6, 2008

September 7

Spore Creature Creator

The Spore Creature Creator is a very cool tool. It allows you to build animals with wild body designs, and some pretty cool appendages.
You might be concerned that it will take up a ton of memory on your computer by having to render, and animate your creature. But fear not, since it uses predone mathematical calculations to animate and render your creature it doesn't require much from your computer.
It is also fun to test out the creatures. In the test mode you can make them walk, display emotions, dance, and do things that you would expect from animals. Sometimes it can be sad though to have made a really cool animal, only to find out it moves like it's internals are in pain, or that it has some weird twitch.
One other thing that is a bit disappointing is how basic the editor is. Sure you can adjust the spine and move all sorts of things around, but as far as edges go it is pretty bad. Every shape you make is round and when you scale it, it scales all edges, not just one side, say if you wanted to make a wide short creature. The paint doesn't have quite all the textures you might want either. But other than a few downsides it is all good.
At ten bucks the editor is pretty cheap and allows you to do all sorts of fun things, it also provides you with tools to capture and upload video, take picturs, and make .gifs. If you have ten bucks to spare and are looking forward to Spore, I suggest that you get a copy of this game, if your not sure there are tons of trial versions you can try. In my opinion this was ten bucks well spent.


A+

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Lego Indiana Jones




Even though the most recent Indiana Jones game is devoid of blood, heart-rip-outs, and *sniff* the Wilhelm Scream, it is still a lot of fun to play. Especially in two player.



The first thing I would like to point out is, the two player. All of the levels can be played by two people at once. From the very beginning. You can choose to be helpful, or not. You can blow your friend to pieces with most weapons you choose weather it be fists, rocket launchers, pistols, machine guns, hand grenades, swords, crossbows, spears, feet, or random objects kicking around the environment. You could also help out by building, holding bridges open, or fending off the Nazis/village people/crazed knight. Two player is definitely the best way to play (the computer that plays as the other guy when your not in two player has the IQ of a retarded ant.)



One thing that isn't so fun is the all to common glitches. In one level you must scare birds so they will collide with the enemies airplane. In order for it to be adapted to a video game there are three flocks of birds that you have to scare. But, if you accidentally scare them in the wrong order the game freezes up. Some of the items you carry can be dropped. If you drop it in the wrong spot it seems to be teleported to somewhere else in the space-time continuum and isn't able to be recovered, meaning you have to restart the entire level! Often you yourself will get stuck in weird grooves on the not flat ground. Most of these should have been wiped out when the game was tested.



Something that is very interesting is the way all of the movies have been made into Lego. Watching Indy stare down into the pit with Sallah and his Dad was funny in the movie and equally funny in the game. Some of the movies elements were even matched in the levels such as the temple of the grail.



If you enjoy having an inventory of almost sixty people, don't mind a few glitches, or are a fan of the series, this would be a good game to get. You can easily beat the game in several hours, but with tons of secrets and bounuses to unlock it has days, upon days of replay time.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Indiana Jones the Fourth

So you thought the original Indiana Jones movies were good but you're afraid that the fourth one won't hold up to the previous films and ruin them all for you. Don't worry this series hasn't gone the way that Pirates of the Caribbean has.
The film gets right to the chase pretty quickly, within the first ten minutes Indiana Jones is unveiled and is already being uncooperative towards the Communists. Soon the action picks up and an inside joke is unveiled. Indiana Jones crashes a truck through a bunch of crates in Area 51 (the place with all the crates in the first movie) one of the crates he crashes through shows part of the Ark of the Covenant.
Shia Labeouf does a good job acting as well. Lots of critics thought he was just a normal boring character. But to me, a normal person, I thought he was pretty funny as Mutt Williams the 50's style punk. The dialogue between Ford and Labeouf was also pretty funny.
Lots of the things people loved are still in it. Exciting chases, fights, and temple traps. There is even a supernatural rescue. The badguys aren't Nazis but they're still evil and big at the set time.
They also did a good job of incorporating a ton of things that were important to the 1950's. They had everyone's fear of the Soviet Union, everyone's fear of atomic bombs, and, of course, everyone's fear of (stop reading if you want the plot kept a secret) aliens. When the Soviet Union lady asks Jones if he has any defiant last words he replies, "I like Ike."
And to those who are fans of the series, don't worry, the Wilhelm Scream is still a part of the Indiana Jones movies! When Indiana Jones and long lost son are riding through a library on a motorcycle they knock some guy over and he lets out a Wilhelm. Aoooughhahh!
If your looking for a fun film that isn't as gruesome as the first three this would be a good one. Just remember, if you don't watch this one then the Communists win!




No one's calling him "Junior"



A+

Monday, May 19, 2008

Iron Man


If you expected this movie to be as bad as the Fantastic Four or Spider-Man, don't worry, Marvel's most recent adventure in superhero movies is actually, well, good!
Tony Stark's gagillion (note: It's higher than a billion) dollar company provides some good financial support for his ridiculously expensive suit. And it's one of the only superhero movies I've seen that has to do with terrorism in the Middle East (kind of graphic, but not mindless street thugs).
Iron Man even has some pretty good special effects. As he is shot and crashes the suit's paint job continues to get more and more scratched up. The scene in which he basically has a fight with some airplanes is really, really cool. He also has a really awesome computer!
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) isn't big headed *cough*PeterParker*cough* even though he's a billion dollar guy.
The plot is pretty good. It explains where the suit came from and gives a detailed description on how it was built. The amount of time that the bad guy is in it could have been increased, but without him most of the time it was actually okay.
I enjoyed the movie. Some of it was inappropriate for children, and by that I mean that it probably has the highest body count for all superhero movies combined! But other than that it was pretty good. If Spider-Man disturbed you with his boringness, don't worry, Iron Man was not affected by the previous Marvel movie's flops.
He's angry that you might not have watched it yet.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Mario Kart Wii

To start out I'd like to say that Mario Kart Wii is an awesome game. It's very fun and has tons of features.
The Grand Prix and the VS are still familiar enough to keep long time fans happy. The battles and races have changed, mainly because you can now play with twelve people instead of eight. You can still play four player all on one Wii but you can only play two on a Wii when you go online.
That's brings up another good point. The online play has drastically improved from Mario Kart DS. There is less lag making it a more fun experience and the game finds people for you to play much faster. With the friends system you can easily locate and join them! Even without the disk using the Mario Kart channel.
Some of the unlockable features require a ton of work to get. But none of the characters have any drastic advantages so if your a Mario Kart noob then you'll still survive the only play.
It's easy enough that people new to the franchise can still play and possibly keep up with the veterans of the franchise.
In conclusion I'd like to encourage you to buy this game if you already haven't. Who knows, maybe I'll even play against you online (my name on there is "Nolan".)

Rating- Double A+

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Huo?


"What's a huo?" You ask. A huo (prounounced "huh") is basically a made up animal. This animal isn't exeptionally smart and has a love for many things (including chicken wings and Slurpees). Huos come in a variety of types, you can pretty much make up your own if you want (if you have any great ones please reply on this post). They are gassy and pretty much enjoy their lives. Now that my brother, Squishy Huo (a.k.a Jesse) is on you can expect to see many more things huo related.