Christmas 2.0

You are invited to participate in a bold new concept in Christmas giving. It is the result of years of painstaking research and field testing. Now the beta process for what we're conservatively calling "Christmas 2.0" is open for a public beta.

The Christmas 2.0 concept allows users to leverage their own interests into a gesture of good will towards fellow man. Christmas 2.0 user groups will exist to allow an individual to purchase an item and locate other users who desire that same item. The user group will create what is called a 'giving circle' and match each 'giver' with a recipient. Once each user has purchased the item, they are given the name of another user and their name will be passed to another user. Each of these users has symbolically 'given' a gift to another user in the group but at a net savings due to removing the cost of wrapping and shipping the item. Overall, it's estimated that each user reduces their carbon footprint for the season significantly, while also getting each participant what they really wanted.

Our initial user group will be focused upon the game Call of Duty 4. To enhance the ecologial upside of reducing resource consumption, it is advised that all users purchase said item on Steam. To keep with the spirit of the season, please do not forget to send a note of thanks to your assigned giver for the generous gift. Once the giving circle is closed to new users, a regular group gaming session can be scheduled.

Thank you for participating in this bold new step forward in the field of gift giving!

THE FUTURE IS NOW!

(translation - who all wants to buy call of duty 4 for themselves and claim somebody got it for them?)

Wii Zapper

Picked up the Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow Training a couple weeks ago. Definitely worth 20 bucks. This isn't necessarily because the Zapper is a perfect thing, but as a package with the game it's a must buy. The all in one design with the nunchuk attached isn't comfortable to hold for a long time. I would much prefer a pistol style, especially for games like Ghost Squad that don't really require the nunchuk. Link's Crossbow Training, on the other hand, is a tight shooting game. Each level is divided into three segments changing the method of getting around the state. Sometimes all targets appear within the frame, others allow you to rotate in place to find targets, while the third mode lets you roam with the nunchuk to clear a level of enemies. The key is in stringing together consecutive hits to get high multipliers for gold and platinum level performances. Quite good.

The other game I picked up at the same time was a pretty good deal for $30 - Ghost Squad. I recall playing this in the arcades before. You wouldn't think that there would be much replayability, as the three levels only take about half an hour to complete. However, every time you complete a level successfully, you unlock a more difficult runthrough of that level. In addition you unlock many different weapons with different spread fires or penetration abilities. Combined, we get a game that my non-gamer wife will actually play through in co-op with me. She says she prefers this one to Link because when you're playing co-op it doesn't matter if you're playing well, so long as you have another person playing. Link, on the other hand will let you know that your score isn't quite up to snuff, as you need to get a medal in order to unlock the next level and combo runs are the only way to do that.

Overall, I really enjoy the zapper games and feel that the odds of my buying more co-op shooting games in the future are very very good. I may even snag a single player one for myself.

Three stinkers and a redemption

3 days for the weekend, three movies. Three wastes of time but a redemption on the third.

First off was Friday with The Golden Compass. Bleh. Lauren gobbled up all three of the books in the series in the course of a week and she loved them. I had avoided them to see how the movie seemed without. I still somehow managed to have a moment watching the movie where I really thought to myself "Man, the book was way better than this.." before I managed to catch the fact that I hadn't even tried them.. I don't think it's too promising that we showed up after the movie was supposed to start and had no problems finding a seat in the middle of the theater.

Overall - No context for story in the movie - everything seemed a little arbitrary in the plot, and the compass is a little too convenient. Why did they need the 'prophecy' if the kid could justify her own ability to divine the future, etc., etc. I don't see there being enough interest to justify a second film.

Saturday night - Battlestar Galactica - Razor

Honestly, this tv/straight to dvd movie put me to sleep. Apollo is boring when he's in charge. His angst and apathy are uninteresting to the extreme. This story takes place on the Pegasus - which by necessity places the story before the first chunk of season 3. It introduces a character that Admiral Cain had groomed to be some kind of super hardass in her own image. I really fell asleep before the character development kicked in - I probably made it through about an hour of unimaginative showings of all the past events on the Pegasus referred to verbally by characters. Apparently the second half of the movie actually has something interesting about the Cylon efforts to create biological versions of themselves and surviving remnants. I'll check it out some other time when I've got a little more gas left in the tank.

Sunday night - Transformers

To be honest, this is a god awful movie. I saw it in the theater and I wanted that time in my life back. What really made it all better was picking up the Rifftrax commentary. It was done by some of the MST3k guys and it really made the movie a bit more palatable. I'm definitely going to be buying some more of the commentaries for some of the movies that I already own.