Category Archives: review

Shadow of the Colossus

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Last week, Shadow of the Colossus finally came out in Europe. It’s a PS2 game by the same team which did the excellent ICO, and it shows.

It also is very hard to talk about it objectively, as it is a very subjective experience, but definitely one that you should try (in addition to ICO), as the games seemingly take place in the same world.

Essentially, the game offers you 16 boss battles (and plenty of replay incentives after that). These are sometimes more, sometimes less frantic, but always distinct episodes, separated by calming travels through the gorgeous but largely barren landscapes (which are barren for a reason; also note this does not imply boring) presented entirely without load times.

Beautiful is not a big enough word to describe how the game looks, but it pays for its epic scale with a less than stellar (but never hindering) frame-rate. I’ve entered a cave, where a waterfall falls out from a shadowed ledge into the bright sunlight that’s entering the cave from above. Or the small touches, like the doves near the altar flying off and leaving feathers behind, sea-sawing slowly to the ground, or the beauty of the water, both being below the surface or simply seeing the blurry reflections.
The animation of the main character, his horse (which you really only have to nudge where you want him to go), and the colossi themselves are moving incredibly well, with a precision and connectedness to their environment (via inverse kinematics) that is rarely seen.
Hats off to the artists and directors (not to forget the programmers, who made it all possible on aging hardware); this game has evoked emotion and thought from me on a scale I find hard to believe.

The gameplay probably won’t be to everyone’s taste (best described as a mixture of action and puzzle game), but give it a chance to enchant you. Most highly recommended, both as a game and a story.

Crash (2004)

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Crash is a great, “serious” film, but not without humour, exhibiting many tightly interwoven stories revolving around racial stereotypes and miscommunication. It feels a bit reminiscient of Magnolia in its way of story-telling, but in a good way.
Touching and very recommended.

Apple’s “Mighty Mouse”

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There is a lot of confusion about Apple’s new Mighty Mouse (which IMO is a crap name). As I’ve got mine today, I thought I’d dispel some of it:

  • It still has a physical micro-switch that is activated when applying force to the top of the mouse.
  • The capacitive sensors only detect which finger is applied, the actual click is initiated by the micro-switch. When both sensors register contact, a primary click is initiated (i.e. for a secondary click, you have to lift your primary finger off the surface).
  • The scroll ball works surprisingly well in spite of its small size; diagonal movement is a bit harder but I think that’s not due to the input mechanism but the way human fingers work. It needs a tiny amount of pressure on the ball to register the scrolling movement; it is possible to physically turn the ball without applying any downward force which results in no reaction. The scroll ball click (which I mapped to “Button 3” to keep Safari’s “Open in New Tab”) also uses the micro-switch for initiating the action but (somehow) is not confused by fingers lying on either contact surface.
  • The squeeze buttons (which function as a single button) are meant to be operated by thumb and pinky and take quite a bit of force to activate (to guard against accidental activation I suppose).
  • The “speaker” (a piezo clicker) is used for feedback when rolling the scroll ball and when activating the squeeze button. This is surprisingly effective.
  • The USB cable is still ridiculously short. This is fine if you have a hub in your keyboard or display, but anything else is a stretch.
  • Update: It seems to use the Agilent ADNS-2051, which is capable of 400 and 800 dpi. A good reference for which mouse uses which chip is here, but it does not include the new Apple mouse yet.

I am still a button short as my previous mouse was a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer for Bluetooth 2 which had two thumb buttons which I used for Exposé Show Desktop and All Windows. The old mouse had the problem of disconnecting after a certain idle period (to save power) which lead to problems with the “Sleep” mode of the Mac Mini — it immediately reawakens when it realises that the BT mouse has severed the connection. Then you have to send it to Sleep again. Also, the middle mouse button on the new version of the Microsoft Bluetooth Mouse is difficult to press: The scroll-wheel is continous (i.e. no distinct “notches”) which means you’re more likely to initiate a scroll than pushing the button (which requires a lot more force than before).
Ah yes, I was talking about the new mouse: It looks nice, it’ll have to cleaned more often than the grey / blue / black Microsoft mouse, the lift-left-finger-to-right-click is easier to get used to than I thought, the scroll ball is nifty, and the resolution is higher than the abysmal 400 dpi of the IntelliMouse for Bluetooth, although I don’t know what nominal resolution of the “Mighty Mouse” is.
Looks like a keeper… 😉

Nochnoy Dozor / Night Watch

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Nochnoy Dozor / Night Watch is a Russian film and the first part of a trilogy. It is a modern day fantasy about the age old struggle between good and evil which has come to a stalemate and now both parties try to keep the status quo (a bit like the Cold War) with the Night Watch (good guys watching bad guys) and the Day Watch (bad guys watching good guys) being the overseers of this truce, all the while letting the normal people believe that nothing of the sort of wizards, witches, vampires and shape-shifters exists. The members of the warring factions are called Others and are awaiting the arrival of a prophesied Other that will break the balance for one side or the other.
The director has mainly been doing commercials and music videos, and that is very evident throughout the film. Most of the time this works very well, once in while you feel as if a particular shot did not really have to be in slow-motion or that the camera didn’t have to twirl around the scene 3 times. In that regard it takes plenty of inspiration from Hollywood blockbusters, but is able to stand on its own with a certain grittiness, an odd sense of humour and non-sterile characters, but the blatant Nescafe ads are awful.
The Russian DVD of this has good English subtitles, although certain choices may confuse viewers (i.e. “the Other” = “an Other”, “funnel” = “vortex”).
Better than I expected (and I hoped it would be good). Recommended (as long as you don’t expect an art-house film).

Alastair Reynolds – Chasm City

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After having read Revelation Space I immediately started looking for further books from the same author. Turns out, I misspelled his name while searching Amazon.de, which just turned up the one book I had already read.
So, I’ve now been reading Alastair’s next book, Chasm City, which is just as good. It is set in the same universe (and Reynolds cleverly hands out a bit of fan-service for the people who remember his previous novel) and details a character’s road to revenge. Simple in theory, beautifully complex in practice and again raising plenty of interesting questions and concepts along the way.
With this novel, I have to revise my opinion of Reynolds, and I am now officially looking as much forward to his future books as I am excited about Vernor Vinge’s work!

Resident Evil 4 (GameCube)

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I finished RE4 yesterday evening — and at this point in time, me finishing a game is in itself a recommendation. It manages to revive the franchise in so many ways while still staying true to its core, coupled with amazing visuals and sound effects. Most in game cut-scenes look better than pre-rendered sequences used in other games and the game itself is equally well executed with plenty of atmospheric particle effects, good texture work and excellent character models. The only (small) mar is that it always runs in (non-anamorphic) wide-screen mode.
It is a fairly long game (a bit below 22h for me — with 908 enemies killed), but due a variety of nuances in the core gameplay (partner, vehicle, etc.) it manages to stay fresh and interesting throughout with an amazing intensity. The merchants with their different available weapons, upgrades and available mini-games improve replayability manifold as you can take your inventory and excess cash into a new game.

Dan Simmons – Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, Rise of Endymion

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As a follow up to my review of “Hyperion”, here is my take on the rest of the series: As the titles suggest, the series is split into two times two books (with more reappearing cast than one thinks possible at their respective beginnings). “Hyperion” is the tale of the 7 pilgrims, the “Fall of Hyperion” is the story of a poet, “Endymion” is the story of a chase, and the “Rise of Endymion” is the story of one who teaches. And they are all excellent, more relying on emotions and characters than on hard science, but they are not worse off for it as the scope is huge. In fact, I am (once again) drying tears from my cheeks at the ending. Which is perfect.
I have also fallen for many a red herring (whether through my own overly vivid imagination or because they were meant as such I do not know), and as such have been pleasantly surprised that Simmons has not resorted to clichés I thought were coming.
Very recommended (but then I usually do not bother writing about bad stuff ;)). I have a feeling that the story of the last two books (in particular the final one) — and thus pretty much all of it — will stay with me for quite some time…