I had a blast playing the single-player mode, finding out about Sam Fisher’s latest adventure and the trouble he faced, saving the world and learning about the mystery of his daughter’s death.  It was exciting, well-written and compelling.  In fact, this might have been the most connected emotionally I’ve been to Sam.  Like a TV show or movie series you’ve watched for years, Sam & I had been through a lot together, and as the story unfolded, I was taken along for the ride.  I think Michael Ironside and the writers should be given giant raises for their work throughout the series.

I have a ton of fun playing the multiplayer co-operative modes, both the prologue to Sam’s story and the Deniable Ops, bite-size chunks adventures, featuring new-on-the-scene Archer & Kestrel.

The graphics are good.  The sound is good, other than Michael Ironside’s tinny-sounding voice clips this game.  He normally has such a more commanding voice in these games, in the same vein as James Earl Jones.  It just seems like something is off there (bad mixing, weird recording, etc).

I have always loved the Splinter Cell games, since the demo disc that Toys R Us handed out before the first game’s release nearly ten years ago.  Since playing that, I’ve never seen a game series get my attention or get me so immersed in the gameplay and storytelling as the Splinter Cell franchise. 

I played each of them repeatedly, honing my skills until I could get through each game rarely, if ever, getting detected.  I took pride in my ability to assess a situation and come up with the best possible course of action for either eliminating or avoiding any opposing force.  I don’t know that I’d set any records with my gameplay, but I was proud of my skills. 

This is what Splinter Cell: Conviction takes away from me:  my pride.

Playing Conviction requires a totally different skillset, a “run & gun” style more akin to Gears of War or Rainbow Six (which isn’t such a far stretch, seeing as how Maxime Beland, the game’s Creative Director, came over from the R6V team).  However, in an added twist that neither of those games even have, you can, at most points in the game, see through walls and mark bad guys with a little flag.  At that point, if you’ve earned an “execute token”, you can barge into the room, hit just one button, and automatically shoot and kill anyone you’ve flagged, up to three at a time (four, if you’ve upgraded a particular weapon).

No longer do I have to lurk in the shadows, watch enemy patrol routes, spot weaknesses in their defense and exploit them.  Now, I can just flag a few baddies from another room, bust in and hit the “win button”.

There’s a making-of video on Xbox Live and floating around the internet that has one of the most perplexing quotes I’d ever heard from a developer.  Sean Stanek, the game’s Scripted Events Director, said, “I love the old Splinter Cells, but it was time to kinda do something new.”  Wh…WHAT?  He likes them, so it’s time to change them?  What sort of message does that send to the fans?  “We know you like this… but we don’t care.”

What I hope is that this was a hiccup, a misstep on their adventure to making the next great Splinter Cell game.  While very fun in its own way, it doesn’t fit the genre I’d grown accustomed to and respected for this last third of my life.  Perhaps Ubisoft will see that though there’s no denying a group of gamers who require simpler, easier-to-master experiences, Splinter Cell fans aren’t part of that group.

I am a gamer who enjoys challenge, complexity and critical-thinking in some of my video games.  I understand the casual gamer is an appealing audience as well, and they can have most any other franchise they want.  Just don’t give them my Splinter Cell.

As much as I love my current phone, I’m going to pass on this new one, at least for now.  Here’s why…

First off, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t take one if someone handed one to me and said “it’s on us”, but at the price point, the features it offers are not enough to justify the cost.  I suppose my post’s title could be a little misleading, but “iPhone 3GS – I Would Want It Either Offered More Features or Took a Price Cut” wouldn’t fit in many RSS readers.

Arguably, the biggest feature of this new phone is its camera.  Both the video feature and the fact that it’s more than just a cell phone camera are compelling.  In demos, they showed off the ability to click an object on the screen that the camera is looking at, and that object will be what’s in focus.  So if you had a foreground, a subject and a background, clicking on any one of those elements would make THAT element crystal clear.  It’s also a 3 megapixel camera, which is leaps and bounds better than the turd on my current 3G.  However, I don’t take enough pictures with my phone for a better camera to be an attractive feature.  It’s not REMOTELY what I bought or use my iPhone for.

A feature that I WOULD want, if the price were right, would be the voice activation/dialing/etc.  However, a week before launch, I’m not completely assured that the voice activation isn’t in, or can’t be added to, the new 3.0 OS that EVERY iPhone will be getting soon.

I guess if the phone was more attractive to me, personally, I’d be more up in arms at the fact that as a 3G owner, I’d have to pay full retail price for one, starting at $399, instead of what NEW owners get to pay, starting at $199.  But that’s if I wanted one.  As it is, I’m not upset because I don’t think it’s a worthwhile upgrade for what I want out of the phone now.  As time goes on, I might change my mind.

Now, my friend Chris is looking forward to getting one, and for good reason.  One, he’ll be getting it at the acceptable price, and two, he’s moving up from his EDGE phone.  He’ll have the jump in features that made the 3G so attractive, PLUS the bells and whistles of the 3GS.  Hell, the jump from EDGE to 3G in itself was the most attractive thing to me about switching phones last summer.

Maybe I’ll wait for next year, and see what the iPhone 3GS+ can do…

To be considered ‘good’ at Facebook, there’s status updates, blog updates, photo and video uploads, photo tagging, etc.  It seems like too much to me.

Twitter, on the other hand, is a burst text from my phone, whenever I want, and I can subscribe to whomever I want.  I can check it when I want, and get EVERYTHING by scrolling through a few lines of text, with MAYBE a link or two inserted every once in a while.  It’s not lots of steps, which, while simple, take time.  That’s time I’d rather spend doing other things. With Twitter, if you can scroll up and down, you can get just about everything there is to get from the people you’re following.  Even with the iPhone Facebook app, there’s just too much to do to get caught up.

Are you noticing more Twitter activity than Facebook recently?  Less?

Twitter makes no money.  They don’t charge a subscription fee.  They don’t sell ads.  They’re a completely revenue-less business.  It’s the fundamental flaw with the whole “web 2.0” business plan, not unlike the underpants gnomes from South Park (see below).

Even if they DO start to try and monetize it, my guess is people will just jump ship and find another service that would take its place as the new free option.

I’m not down on Twitter.  I use it, I read others’ feeds and post my own over to the right on my own site.  I just see it as the next step; another perishable internet fad, like MySpace.

Also, added to the list of Fallen Heroes is actually ‘Heroes’.  In a previous post, I mentioned that one of my favorites, ‘The Office’, is no longer the same show I fell in love with years ago.  I’ve really been trying to give ‘Heroes’ the benefit of the doubt, because I loved the first season, and still love a lot of the characters, but whoever’s writing this season clearly has no respect for the characters or the universe written around them.

The last few episodes could have been told in a “Previously on Heroes…” thirty second wrap-up, but instead has been stretched to three hours of slow-moving, predictable boringness.  The few parts that ARE mildly interesting have been messed up, too, by all of a sudden adding weaknesses to characters that hadn’t been present before, for the sake of further drawing out the scene.  For example, a mind-reading, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for” character all of a sudden has a weakness to fire alarms, or “sensory overload”.  WHAT?!  When was THAT established?  He was able to focus through machine gun fire and the witnessing of his girlfriend getting gunned down right in front of him, but a siren messes him up?!

I am going to try to tough through it, because I remember LOST having a terrible slump, too, but it’s going to be tricky.

This ice storm knocked hundreds of thousands of people out of power in the dead of winter, which had a domino effect which then salted the wounds of the power outage.  Because it was such a massive attack on the power grids, KEY facilities like hospitals, schools and water treatment plants weren’t able to be instantly restored as they would in other emergency situations.  There are TONS of boil advisories in the western part of Kentucky now, because they can’t treat the water without electricity.  I heard stories of police taking doctors and nurses to work because they couldn’t get there otherwise.

My power was restored only three days later, and my comfort level with being Angie’s guest was beginning to wear.  Not because of my host, AT ALL, just because of my INABILITY to BE HOME.  I like being home.  But more to the point, I like the OPTION of being home.  And that wasn’t available to me.  So I can’t IMAGINE what it’s like for the people still affected, in hotels, with relatives or out of town, waiting for service.

My mother and dad lost power, twice, over the course of the week.  Once immediately, the next time for about an hour and a half on Friday.  At the time of writing this, Angie’s parents are STILL without power, and are with Angie.  In situations like that, it can’t be easy for anyone involved.

Changing the subject a bit, I’m really glad we ended up watching the Super Bowl.  Angie and I were a bit ‘meh’ on the whole situation, since we didn’t give a crap about either team involved, but after talking, both settled on the Cardinals; Angie because of their apparent underdog status, me because Warner used to play for the Rams.  If I HAVE a favorite team, I suppose it would be them.  They’re the only ones I pay much attention to at all.  Living in Colts/Bears country, it’s a no-no, anyway.

<rant> I’m going to say it, and you may disagree with me, and I don’t care.  I don’t even like typing this phrase because of its severe overuse recently.  If I can find another way to describe it, I’ll rephrase this statement, but here it goes:  The Office has jumped the shark.  I’m not sure when.  I don’t have a specific instance in mind.  I just keep watching it and thinking, “Man, this show used to be FUNNY.”  I keep giving it pity-viewings, hoping it will snap out of it, but I just don’t find it as funny anymore, ESPECIALLY the ones Paul Lieberstein writes.  After every especially bad one, Angie or I say, “I bet Toby wrote this one”, and we’re generally right.  What’s really a bummer is that I LOVE Toby’s character on the show.  I think he’s one of the most underused characters, actually.  I love Michael’s completely unfounded resentment and anger towards him.  But when Paul writes Michael Scott, he writes him like a mean, self-centered moron.  The best Michael episodes, to me, are when he’s written like a well-intentioned, un-hip, bumbling guy that has a ridiculous vocabulary, but loves his job and the people that work for him. </rant>

Stay warm, Tri-State.

If you’re the opposition, I’d think now would be the time to play up the ‘rock star’ angle like never before.

The amount of money he’s spent bombarding my mailbox with high-quality, full-color, glossy trashcan lining ALONE has to be in the millions. Regardless of how you feel about his ability, or lack thereof, to lead this country, I’m already nervous about his spending practices. 

This, of course, is the same money he stated he wasn’t going to take.  Again, I’m not going to get into a he-said/he-said about lies and stuff. Just the one specifically relevant to my point. Therefore, if your point is to deflect with some attack on the opposition, it won’t matter.  For all this post cares, he could be out slapping babies and punching senior citizens in the stomach.  I’m talking about Obama.  Here he is, explaining why he wasn’t going to take public financing (spoiler: it’s because he USED to think it was corrupt and broken)

This is the kind of stuff that scares the hell out of me.  Not because a politician lied.  All politicians flip-flop, sometimes justifiably.  If their constituency doesn’t like their position, I feel they MUST change their position.

This isn’t that.  This is a political chess-move decision that didn’t work out for him, so he 180’ed.  The exact same practices that he’s personally calling out John McCain’s campaign of doing, he’s now doing.

If you vote for him because you understand and like his presidential agenda, then perfect.  That’s what the election, a democracy, is all about.

However, if you’re voting for him because you watched his paid-for TV shows, high-gloss print ads, video game advertising, because he’s a smooth talker, because Ron Howard likes him, because ABC, NBC, CNN, like him, etc., then buckle up, nation… we could be in for a very bumpy ride.

I asked him, "I’m sorry.  I must not have been clear.  I want a ‘new’ one, not a ‘used’ one."

He said, "Oh, this isn’t used.  It’s a new game.  We just used it in our demo station for a while."

I said, "I’m sorry for your trouble.  I don’t want that one.  Thanks anyway."  Then I walked out.

The more I got to thinking about it, the more ticked off I got.  I figured I’ll just go to another store and get the game later.

So last night, I swung into the Gamestop on the west side of town, before picking up groceries.  I asked for a new copy of Spider-Man, and the dude did the EXACT same thing.  I asked him if he had any sealed ones, and he gave me the same song and dance.

"Well, this is technically new, because we only used it here in the store, in our demo unit," the clearly confused salesperson tried to explain.

I asked him what was the verb in that sentence.  He said, "Uh, ‘used’?"

"BINGO!", I said.  "It’s unsealed, the manual’s been flipped through, and the case is banged up from being on the shelf.  Why on earth would I want to pay the same amount of money for THAT that you charged other people for ACTUAL new ones!?"

I asked him if he’d charge me the used price for that game, since that was what it was.  He told me, "I can’t do that." 

I said, "Thanks for your time," and left.

I’m not sure what Gamestop is trying to pull off with the passing off used games as new.  I KNOW it didn’t come from a beat up home, or a smoker’s house, or anything like that, but COME ON.  IT WAS USED.  Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, ANYWHERE else doesn’t try to pull that crap.  Do people buy these games at full price?!  Would/have you?  That’s my latest poll question up there.