Thursday, October 28

 The Second Season of Stargate SG-1 begins immediately after Season 1, it is technically part two of the season one finale. The story again follows Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) and all of their doings while in the team SG-1.

The team is back for some more crazy adventures

The second season consists of 22 episodes that run roughly 40 minutes. Season two is essentially season one part two, literally if you consider the first episode. It continues what season one did with traveling to various planets with the plan to meet new species/cultures, bring back new technology, and still trying to find some people they lost earlier on. However the emphasis in season two is more geared towards trying to create alliances to fight the Goa'uld rather then just going to new worlds with the hopes of learning cultures.

An awesome episode... with sweet music and transitions

What season two does do somewhat differently then season one is that is involves more fighting. There are more conflicts with the Goa'uld, especially since season two introduces even more Goa'ulds. Also there is more time spent on earth covering the SGC’s (Stargate Command) conflict with other earth-based groups.

While many of the episodes in season two are quite interesting, there are a couple of them that will leave you questioning why you just spent 40 minutes watching something so useless. However, these kinds of episodes are very few and far between. Only 2 episodes stick out in my mind. So for the majority of season 2 the episodes are actually very interesting and fun to watch.

Yeah, this episode is terrible...

Season two of SG-1 has the exact same reasons to be watched as season one did. These reasons being the “new” worlds and interesting earth history, great actors, and the production values. If anything season two improves on season one by improving some of the production values, some very nice special effects are added in season two.

Much like season 1, missing Season 2 would later be partially/extremely detrimental. You could definitely pick up what you missed, but it would be quite confusing. Season 2 introduces some things that will have a large impact on the entirety of Stargate SG-1.

Watch Rating

-         Must See

Saturday, October 16

DJ Hero was a game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision in 2009. It is a music game that uses a turntable as a controller and it features many different types of songs, but all of them mixed to some club or techno beat.

- Story -

There is no story in DJ Hero.

-- Story Score = N/A

- Visuals -

The visuals of DJ Hero are no different from the recent Guitar Hero games. The characters are representations of real people while most of them are slightly more like caricatures. Most of the things like the crowd, the turntable, and the lights all suit the game quite well and are visually pleasing. The game may not be the best looking game in the market, but that is no way means it looks bad.

Visually it is pretty nice, but it may make you have a seizure...

The major things that stand out in terms of visuals are the lights. Many times they sink up with the music being played so when the player scratches the lights will flash or strobe.

The graphics in the game are what is to be expected of music games. Nothing outrageously amazing, but definitely good enough to please the eye and this case perhaps cause a seizure.

-- Visual Score = 7 / 10

- Game Play -

What makes DJ Hero stand out is by far its game play. Thus far in gaming it is very unique, especially to the music genre. This is as far as I know the first game to use a turntable. This allows newcomers and veterans of the music genre to be on even ground for DJ Hero, which is good and bad considering the difficulty of the songs.

Wednesday, October 13

The first season of Stargate SG-1 starts roughly one year after the events of the movie Stargate. It then follows the story of Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) and all of their doings while in the team SG-1.

From Left to Right: Amanda Tapping, Richard Dean Anderson, Christopher Judge, Michael Shanks, and Don S. Davis (General Hammond)

The first season consists of 21 episodes that run roughly 40 minutes with the pilot being has long as two episodes. During this season you see the formation of SG-1 and the SGC (Stargate Command). After being formed SG-1 travels to various planets with the plan to meet new species/cultures, bring back new technology, and even finding some people they lost earlier on. Another major part of season one is the renewed fight against the Goa'uld, who were the antagonists in the movie. The pilot shows a brand new Goa'uld, Apophis, and how he becomes SG-1s new major villain.

New worlds lay beyond a "puddle"

Season 1 is a great introduction to the world of Stargate. In the early episodes the happenings during the movie, in case you missed, are explained (for the most part). The show also starts to delve into the primary four protagonists back-stories, primarily Jack and Teal’c. This helps to flesh out and understand each person’s motives and story. The episodes that do delve into the characters back-story are actually quite good. It is a nice change of pace compared to the usual repeated actions, which are going to a strange new planet, find a problem, fix the problem.

What happens most often in Season 1 is the exploring of new worlds. This helps keep Stargate from getting old since with almost each episode the viewer will see something new and interesting.

Season 1 was shot during the 90

What makes Stargate SG-1 Season 1 worth watching is really three separate things. The first being the world of it all. As the watcher you get to explore all the “new” worlds with the team and you also get the earth history to go along with it (mythology is a major part of Stargate). The second being the cast of characters. Each actor does a fantastic job at being believable, which is what Stargate needs since it is supposed to take place in our current (slight past) reality. The third being the production values. Many of the special effects in Stargate seem to be a bit higher quality than most TV shows, but still lower quality of movies. Along with that the music fits into each scene extremely well and even all of the other audio is quite good.

Hair and clothing styles give away the decade

Stargate is a great show for anyone that likes Mythology (Greek, Egyptian, and Norse in Season 1) or just like history in general. But even if you don’t this is still a fun show to watch just for the exploring and the character interaction. Even though it is only Season 1 it has many, many gripping moments in several episodes that will keep people coming back to see the outcome. Unfortunately Season 1 does have quite possibly the worst cliff hanger is television history.

Watch Rating

-         Must See

Saturday, October 9

Isn't this "new" since no game does it this way anymore

With the recent release of Starcraft 2 I got to thinking. A lot of the complaints against Starcraft 2 were that it was a clone of Starcraft (1). People disliked how similar it was and that it used the “old” style of real time strategy. They disliked the “old” style because well… it was old and had been overdone. They wanted Starcraft 2 to use the “new” style of real time strategy because than somehow it wouldn’t be doing something that has been all the rage these past few years. I just started to ask myself… When does the “new” thing become overdone because honestly… it already has.

Starcraft has always been on the edge of "new" and "classic

Thinking about it the “new” real time strategy games have been removing base building for years, which actually almost completely killed off the “old’ style (base building and resource gathering). If the complaint is to do something “new” or different then those people just are not thinking. If Starcraft 2 followed the “new” style and removed base building and resource gathering then it would have been just like the other 20 games released in the past 3 years. How would that have been good? Wouldn’t Starcraft 2 retaining resource gathering and base building, and being almost the ONLY real time strategy game to do it in the past 2 years because in its own way… unique?

Now 2D is considered "new" (From Shank)

What really made me think about this was not just the release of Starcraft 2 and the complaints prior to release, but also the big influx of 2D side scrolling games lately. A lot of developers have been reverting to the “old” style of games because as of now it is well… “new” again. But there is no complaints to be hear of from developers going back to 2D. Even though by doing so many of these companies are essentially releasing “new” games that are just clones of previous titles. But not all of these games are just re-releases of old games in HD, but brand new games being developed specifically for 2D. They are even being developed by both Indie and Big development studies.

I guess Bionic Commando did wait long enough....

I don’t know, I guess Blizzard didn’t wait long enough for the “old” style of real time strategy games to be considered awesome and “new” again. Anyway, I am just happy Blizzard decided not to follow the current trend. Because the reason I still play Starcraft (1) today is because it isn’t one of the “new” real time strategy games and if I guessed it is probably why so many others do too… well that and the whole balance thing.

So I guess there are two questions now. Are you happy with Blizzard’s decision with Starcraft 2? And would you rather a game follow a new trend coughallshootinggamescough or would you rather see games mix and match new trends, classic styles, and innovative designs?

 

Monday, October 4

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men was a game developed by Io Interactive and published by Eidos in 2007. It is a 3^rd Person shooter that follows the main protagonist Kane and his tag along, Lynch.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men was played using the PC version.

- Story -

Breaking out of jail, this is just the start.

The story revolves around Kane and Lynch and a group called The7, along with Kane’s family, and what makes this story differ from most part is that Kane and Lynch are not ordinary heroes, but are actually criminals. The first thing that happens in the game is Kane (you) and Lynch breaking out of jail, or a police truck. From there some very questionable events will occur that will showcase that these two men are in no way heroes or even trying to be heroes. They are just less bad then the people they are out to get, The7.

The story takes you to several locations even though many of them fairly similar. There is the normal Unite
d States metropolis city, Tokyo, a Tokyo nightclub, Havana, a Venezuela jungle. At first the game is slightly numbing because of the standard boring location, but once past the U.S. city the game truly starts to shine. Each locale past the U.S. city has its own shining moments, from the glowing and seizure inducing nightclub and the tall skyscrapers of Tokyo to the massive battles of Havana or the huge jungle of Venezuela. Each new locations will make your jaw drop is some form of amazement.

Where is the best looking place in the game? Tokyo.

Beyond the interesting locales the game suffers a partially boring story. What happens in the story is without a doubt very new and different from other games, but it just doesn’t grab the player and entice them into thinking it is interesting. There is just not enough character attachment, except with the secondary character (Lynch) and unfortunately the story is primarily about Kane who is just far less interesting.

-- Story Score = 5 / 10

- Visuals -

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men was released in 2007 so the visuals are not entirely up to par. With that said the character models, especially Kane and Lynch, still look fantastic. The environments however… suffer. Aside from the certain moments in each locale the visuals for the places are decent. They look much, much better than last generation, but can’t hold up to 2010 visuals, which they were not meant to. But at those certain moments in each level you will think that this game is a game made just months ago because at each moment the game just looks spectacular.