A Very SPOILERS! Oh. Review of Portal 2

Right, so a year of anticipation has finally paid off, and I've played through Portal 2 TWICE already. (Once straight through, once for developer commentary and achievement nabbing). I've been wanting to spout off my opinions on things since then, but I've also wanted to avoid posting spoilers for those who don't want them. As such, I've written up a separate page that can (or at least, should) only be accessed through the link at the end of this post. Be aware that the link contains SPOILERS for the gameplay and story of Portal 2. Also be aware that since there's no way to activate comments on the link, any comments posted below might contain spoilers as well.

If you want to avoid spoilers but are still interested in my thoughts, I'll say this much: Portal 2 is quite good and definitely worth playing. I've not yet touched the co-op mode yet, but I trust it's just as fantastic as the rest of the game. I come away from this game again wanting more. Valve certainly didn't drop the ball here.

Right then, ready for some spoilers?
Click here.

This Post Makes No Sense, But Will Shortz Has a Cameo

Alternative title: "Hare Today, Blogged Tomorrow"

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on here before, but I've always been amazed and frightened by the fact that there exists an an entire industry based on the premise of the consumer paying to be bombarded with problems and asked to solve them. Normally, you'd pay a therapist to help you get rid of your problems, but here you're paying to take on challenges that often times will get you nothing more than a chirpy sound effect or a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. I'll be totally honest with you; logic puzzles are my cocaine. I've come to equate grid-based usually-Japanese logic puzzles with pleasure and stress relief.

This is a bit ironic when you consider the financial strain I put myself in when I'm on a logic puzzle bender. Recently, the fine folks (read: sadistic jerks) at Conceptis Puzzles released Nurikabe, a logic puzzle where you have to create a continuous chain of black squares that divide the white squares into "islands" that have the given area. I've been a member of Conceptis for probably two-and-a-half years now, and since they introduced their pay-to-play system, I've been pretty good at limiting how much I indulge in their puzzles. As soon as I played through all the sample Nurikabe puzzles when they first came out, I immediately bought another load of credits and started spending them like mad on Nurikabe puzzles. It's now about a month later, and I've already gone through half of the credits I bought due to this addiction, which is sad considering I usually make a credits package last 6-9 months.

But I couldn't stop there. Since it's a Japanese logic puzzle, and one created by Nikoli, a major logic puzzle manufacturer, SURELY there must exist a book of these puzzles somewhere out there. After doing a search on Amazon, I found that there were some Nurikabe books, but most were either not-in-stock, too expensive, or couldn't ship to my dorm before I graduate (holy crap, I'm graduating). I settled on a Will Shortz book of a small variety of puzzles (I say small because there are only 100 puzzles spanning five types, I think), though I've realized in retrospect that they'll probably be very low-difficulty puzzles, since the book is meant to be an introduction to new puzzle types.

Not satisfied with this, I ended up going to the Lycoming Mall yesterday to check out their Borders for more puzzle books (and elsewhere for pants). When I got there, I was heavily disappointed in their Games and Puzzles section. Of what I saw on those shelves, maybe 55% were sudoku, 40% were crossword puzzles, and the rest other random puzzle types. And of all that, maybe 70% of those books were Will Shortz books. Don't get me wrong, Will Shortz is a swell guy, and I love his Weekend Edition puzzles and I keep a New York Times Crossword calendar next to my bed, but the utter lack of variety that they had there absolutely disappointed me. There were no Nikoli books, which is a tremendous shame considering they're one of the major developers and distributors of new puzzle types that seem to pick up everywhere. So I left the Borders, angry and empty-handed.

In the center of the mall, though, I couldn't help but watch a rather bizarre spectacle taking place. You know how malls usually have Santa Clauses (Clausii?) on hand around Christmastime to have kids sit on their laps and have their picture taken? Here, there was one with the Easter Bunny. There was a small line with kids and their parents leading to a guy in a bunny costume (think "Harvey"), and one by one the kids would sit on the bunny's lap, talk for a short bit, and have their picture taken by the photographer on hand.

I started to wonder, what would you talk about as you were sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap? I don't think you'd ask for presents, like you would with a Santa. Maybe you'd ask for a certain kind of candy, or specify something like, "No coconut, please." I'd imagine a lot of kids would ask for hints to where he's planning on hiding eggs this year. And I'd imagine that any well-trained mall Bunny would respond with a vague non-answer such as "I can't tell you, that'd spoil the fun!" And then the photographer would take your picture, and you'd send it out to all your relatives in the annual Easter card, along with a list of boring details about what the fam has been up to.

Not that I would expect anything different from a mall Bunny, but I'm surprised to admit that this Easter Bunny looked exactly as I've always pictured the Easter Bunny. As in, I've always imagined the Easter Bunny to be a guy dressed in a bunny suit, not an oddly anthropomorphic cartoon bunny. I think this belief stemmed from a dream I had when I was maybe seven or eight years old when the Easter Bunny asked me to help him hide eggs. He did not speak, he just mimed everything. That image of the Easter Bunny has stuck with me ever since then.

I've not confessed that to many people, as it seems like this is a very unorthodox view of the Easter Bunny. I don't understand why though. Think about it: Unlike the concept of Santa Claus, which tends to have very specific characteristics tied to him (fat and jolly, red suit and hat, white beard), there are no defining characteristics to the Easter Bunny. Probably every interpretation of the Easter Bunny you've seen has been in some cartoon form, and even then there's no definite template for him (except maybe that he has white fur). If I am to be raised to believe that a rabbit comes to my house every year to hide eggs in the lawn, then I'd be more comfortable imagining a guy in a rabbit costume doing it, rather than a small woodland creature dragging a basket everywhere. So there.

Then I went to Auntie Anne's for some pretzel sticks and left.

Because the Internet Needs More Men Eating Ramen in Their Boxers

Just a quick post to let you know of a new feature I've enabled for this site. Since I got a webcam a month or two ago, I've been having a lot of fun with terrible homemade YouTube videos for friends and Skype chats. But then I got to wondering, what other fun things can I do with my webcam?

The result, in case you missed it, is now on the toolbar on the right. I've added a live webcam to my site! The camera is set up just to the left of my computer monitor, facing my chair so you can always see when I'm at the computer by checking the webcam. Now you can see in an instant if I'll be right there to answer a message from you. Hopefully we can start a trend of people opening up their availability on the Internet. After all, how popular are things like FourSquare and other mobile apps that do much the same thing? Check back later to see if I'm around and maybe we'll chat!

[Edit: On the incredibly off chance that you didn't figure it out, this was an April Fool's joke.]

The Assassin's Dilemma

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for a game that came out three and a half years ago. If you're still concerned about reading something you don't want to find out yet, please heed my warning mid-review to stop reading. Or just don't read this at all. That's what most people do anyway.

(*sigh)

Well, I finished playing Assassin's Creed tonight. I promised myself I would write about my experiences with the game one way or another, as it's sort of a huge milestone in terms of gaming for me. AC was my first full modern console game that I've ever played through, albeit on Steam. Yeah, sad, inn'it? However, I had been tempted to write about my experiences with the game at several stages in the game, and I wish I did, because my mood would have very noticeably changed throughout the game, as you might see here, if I write this properly.

First off, I have to start off this review by thanking Derek, who gifted this game to me way back when, following my annual Christmas gift suggestion post. After downloading the game, I rather comedically couldn't play it for a couple of weeks. After consulting Steam Support (have I mentioned how fantastic they are?), it turned out that I just needed to update my video card drivers. After that, I was quickly into the game.

At this point, I should pause and explain a bit of the backstory behind this game for those not familiar with Assassin's Creed. The game takes place switching between two worlds, one moderny/futuristic, one virtual and ancient. In the former world, you're Desmond, a young twenty-something guy who's been taken in by the Abstergo Corporation. They want to tap into Desmond's genetic memory by using the Animus to discover the location of an ancient hidden artifact. You spend most of the game inside the Animus, playing as Altair, one of Desmond's ancestors, And you run around doing assassin-y stuff. (This is the spot where I can't remember the specifics of the plot and start broadly generalizing.)

As I mentioned back in December, I had played a couple hours of Assassin's Creed 2 at a friend's house, so I was roughly familiar with the general premise of the game. That might have been a bit of a handicap at the start, as the "notoriety" system used in AC2 is different from the "visibility" system used here. As a result, I found myself walking around at a slow crawl around people I didn't need to be avoiding until I realized the difference between the two systems. Oh, how silly I once was.

Once I got past the tutorial-esque stages, I found myself with a bit of a dilemma. In order to progress with the game, you have to do "investigations" to find out enough information on your assassination target. Along the way, there are other tasks that can help you along the way, such as climbing viewpoints (where you get a little bit of architectural eye candy) and saving citizens from bullying guards. These I did with great liberty, but I avoided doing any extra investigations beyond the required two or three. Apparently, there existed (or perhaps, still exists) a bug where if you complete all of the investigations for an area, you won't be able to find new investigations when you return to that city in the future. So, I skimped on that aspect of the game, with the intention of returning to those bits of the game later to complete everything. Yes, I was enjoying the side mission-y things tremendously.

I can't say I was ever a fan of the fighting, which is a shame, because combat is surprisingly easy for how complex it is. With every level up, you gain a new method for combat, and even get a bit of practice time to reinforce the concept. Sadly, I found myself sticking to a primitive "mash the attack button" method, occasionally pressing the right shoulder button to defend. Still, this only came up when saving citizens and during final assassinations, so there wasn't much to really gripe about. For a while.

Please note: At this point in time, I'm going to start getting into spoilers about the ending of the game. If by some chance Assassin's Creed hasn't already been spoiled for you yet, you might want to stop reading now, although suffice it to say I wasn't pleased with the ending. Ironically, this is a spoiler for anyone who plans on reading the rest of my review! We all win today.

As I progressed through the missions in the game, I started to wonder why I kept hearing about how bad of a game Assassin's Creed is, even when not comparing it to Assassin's Creed 2. I loved all of the wandering tasks in each town, and the plotline seemed coherent enough as I was playing through. This changed when I hit the "final" mission, which I knew would inevitably not be the real final mission. Because hey, it's a video game. (Sorry, is that overgeneralizing?)

After the "final" mission, there was another mission, which turned out to be the downfall of the game for me. The final mission involved moving through a passage with a bunch of attackers in succession. At the end of the corridor, you again face another relentless battle against many attackers (but with better armor, so they're harder). This is where my entire opinion of the game started to change. You face about twelve or fourteen attackers, eight at a time (the extras politely wait along the side for their chance to attack you). Once you take them down, the "final bad guy" steps out from the shadows and you face him with whatever semblance of a health bar you have left. Do that, and you've completed your mission. Sort of. As it turns out, that wasn't the final battle! Still! Golly.

But why the rub? This final fight sequence took about ten attempts for me to beat. It was in this time that I started to realize that this game rather sucked in several ways.

• It sucks technically: The game blocks off areas you shouldn't be in by putting a black cloudy curtain in your way if you get close enough. If you try to go through it, sometimes it will just stop you, sometimes it returns you to the last save point. In the final battle, it just stops you, but your attackers are free to move into these forbidden areas, and even attack you from there.


• It sucks logically. I kept thinking about the dialogue right before this battle. King Richard (I think?) says that he can't decide whether to believe your character or your assassin target, so he leaves it to combat, saying God would side with the better man. Funny that bit of dialogue, how come I had to face a baker's dozen-odd minions before I could even touch the guy the original dispute was with? Somehow this realization set up a chain reaction of disappointments looking at the behaviors of so many characters in the game up to this point.


• It sucks action-ally. I already confessed to my button-mashing habits, but this sequence made me realize that any action sequence is just that. You beat ridiculously homogenous baddies over and over again until they're gone. I will very generously give points to any sort of parkuor-ish chase sequences, but that's about the height of exciting action in this game.

In perhaps a somewhat predictable turn, your mentor who had been sending you out on all of these missions turns out to be the real baddie and you fight him (over the course of, surprise, three more homogenous fight sequences), and the game's pretty much over right there. There's a bit of an interactive cinematic that takes place back at Abstergo, which I rather enjoyed, because I got to flex my cryptography muscles a tiny bit. But then when you go to check out one more bit of mysterious "writing on the wall" back in your bedroom, Desmond utters a bit to himself, ending with, "I wonder what it could mean?"

Cut immediately to credits.

It goes without saying at this point that there's a sequel or two that pick up from here, and I consider myself fortunate enough to have seen the start of the second game and know this. However, I could only imagine that when this game was still relatively new, this would have been a tremendous middle finger to the players. It's one thing to make someone want to buy the second game, and a whole 'nother thing to just make them buy the second game. I think this game falls in the latter category.

(*sigh)

That all said and done... I'm still interested in Assassin's Creed 2, and perhaps Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood if ever I could get the time. I hear they're tremendous improvements over the original game, and I already enjoyed what little I saw in those two hours I already played. As for Assassin's Creed: Original Recipe, I think I can finally agree with the naysayers that it's not a great game. I enjoyed bits and pieces, but ultimately it's one that I found frustrating. My dilemma, if you would, is that I might work to try to finish off the bits I skipped earlier, but I'll do it with great resentment now that I've seen the downsides of this game. On a lighter note, we're less than a month away from another game debut NO YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TALK ABOUT PORTAL 2 ANYMORE UNTIL THE PREMIERE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

At the Moment - Comic Relief's 24 Hour Panel People

In an effort to make my blog seem more topical than it actually is, I've invented a new category for things going on right now (or in the immediate future or past). I'm currently watching Comic Relief's 24 Hour Panel People. In a nutshell, Comic Relief is a charitable organization that hosts telethons for raising money for charities in the UK. Unlike US telethons where entertainers come to a studio to encourage viewers to call in their support, entire shows will devote their plotlines to the event which air in a giant marathon.

In a bit of a change-up from the normal format, 24-Hour Panel People is a day-long event in which a series of panel shows are being taped consecutively, with one bloke (David Walliams) appearing in all of them. The shows are being taped today, and will be edited down and shown on TV at a later date.

What makes the event today very interesting is that if you watch the live feed, you can see all of the shows being produced live, including all of the slipped lines and production bloopers. It's quite fascinating to see how these shows start out before they're cut down to the tidy packages that finally air.

Click here for a complete schedule of shows. The times are approximate (they seem to be twenty minutes behind at the moment), since they're working off of a crazy live schedule with one person serving as the constant thread between them all. My personal picks to watch out for (times listed are EST):

• 1:50pm - Blankety Blank - The UK version of Match Game, with possibly the most annoying theme song ever written.


• 3:10pm - Mock the Week - News quiz with some great improv comedy bits thrown in.


• 7:20pm - QI - Probably the highlight of my night. Hilariously impossible quiz that was the basis of one of my earliest blog posts. But wait... no Alan Davies?


• 4:25am (tomorrow morning) - Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Yes, that Whose Line. This may well be worth it just to see what sort of humor Walliams is capable of on little sleep.

On the whole, I'm excited to see the behind-the-scenes aspect of all these shows, so I'll be watching this for a good portion of today. And of course, if you can donate, please do.

(Edit: Times updated, as it turns out I'm crap at figuring out times across the pond.)