I’m going to try to run a series of Halo 3 Beta reviews starting today that examine a number of elements from the game.  This first entry in the series is going to look at the new maps.

Valhalla

Valhalla is far and away my favorite map of the three.  It’s a roughly symmetrical map set in a valley with a base at each end.  A small stream flows through middle, bisecting the map and giving a little visual interest.  And let me just say that the water effects are stunning!

My favorite new thing here is the man-cannon – grav lifts tilted to a 45-degree angle so as to launch your avatar into the map.  Each base has two man-cannons, one of which shoots you straight to the middle of the map and one that shoots you 30-degrees off to one side.  Your gametype strategy will often determine if you use one of these and which direction you wish to launch. 

Each base also hold a variety of weapons, two Mongooses, and a Warthog – the latter of which now features a pumped-up chain gun that will quickly lay waste to almost all opposition. 

There are all kinds of great locations on this map for various strategic maneuvers.  Commanding the knolls in the middle, though, is often the best spot for controlling the map.  A sniper rifle or Spartan laser based here can kill just about anything that moves.  But watch out for that ‘Hog and gunner because they can drive over that hill before you realize you’ve even been gunned down.  So far, my favorite gametypes for this map are Team Slayer and Territories.  I’ve yet to play a CTF game, so I don’t really know how the dynamics play out here.

High Ground

High Ground is just that – a ruined base sitting at the top of the hill that must be defended (or stormed) at all costs.  Access can be gained through a portable grav lift over the wall on the left side, through the bunker at the base of the wall, through the main gate (that first has to be opened from inside the base, by a stairwell on the right side, or through a short tunnel off the staircase.  Despite these access points, the defense can quickly force a chokehold on access, making it very difficult to secure those territories, grab the flag, or plant the bomb. 

Weapons litter the map, and two new action items – the bubble shield and the power drain – grace this map with their presence, affecting the dynamics of battle in new and interesting ways. 

Oh, and watch out for those spike grenades.  They stick to whatever surface they strike and throw shrapnel every which-way.  They’re only instantly deadly is they get stuck to you, but they’ll take your shields down in an instant, if you happen to get caught in the blast cone.

Storm the base, take the High Ground.  That’s what this map’s all about.

Snowbound

Snowbound is my least favorite map at the moment, but it’s growing on me the more I play it.  This map features two bases in a winter landscape.  The bases are connected by an underground tunnel, and there are a series of force-fields in each.  Players can pass through, but weapons-fire and grenades cannot – you might just find yourself with a face full of explodey if you’re not careful.

Be careful not to walk outside the perimeter of the map – there are cannons lined up for the sole purpose of blasting your sorry butt back onto the map.  So, no straying!

Ghosts are the vehicles of choice on Snowbound.  After all, anything with wheels simply won’t roll well on this terrain.  Oh, and grenades don’t bounce on the snow, either.  Remember that.

All in all I’m loving the Halo 3 Beta.  The visuals are fabulous, taking advantage of the greater processing power of the Xbox 360 and launching the Halo experience to the next level.  I can’t wait to see what multiplayer maps get released in the final version in September!

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi has been described as a book worthy of the “late, great Heinlen,” and while I’m certainly not as well read in that particular author as some, I would say that OMW definitely has a very Heinlenesque feel to it.¹

Old Man’s War was wildly entertaining, riddled with wit and humor that kept me laughing all the way through while opening a window into a possible future where humanity has to fight in order to live and expand.  The chronicles the experiences of John Perry as he leaves Earth at the ripe age of 75 to enlist in the Colonial Defense Forces and travels the universe fighting battles on numerous planets, battles which will help ensure that humanity will continue to survive in the universe.

OMW is a quick read – it’s done almost before you realize it.  It’s a simple read – light on deep philosophical ponderings² with a smattering of hard sci-fi throughout (see, skip drives).  The sarcasm and humor will keep you chuckling with almost every page turn, and the descriptions of technology and events will keep you entranced.

This was a very fun read and much more light-natured than I expected.³ I’m already eager to get my hands on a copy of The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony, as well as a copy of The Sagan Diary.  I think I’ve just become a Scalzi fan.

Upcoming Reviews: Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

1. The book actually felt like a cross between Starship Troopers and I Will Fear No Evil.[back]
2. Unlike a number of other science fiction novels I’ve read recently.[back]
3. In hindsight, shouldn’t have been such a huge surprise; I have, after all, been reading Scalzi’s blog for quite some time now and have become fairly well-acquainted with his particular brand of humor.[back]

Elantris is a fresh and remarkably cunning approach to fantasy fiction.  Prince Raoden, heir to the throne of Arelon, suddenly finds himself taken by the Shaod and cast out to dwell among the cursed of Elantris.  He must now restore the city to some semblance of its former glory or else risk being taken by the Heod, a form of madness that afflicts most of the city’s population.  Sarene, Raoden’s bride-to-be, finds herself widowed even before being married and finds herself deeply involved in the political turmoil of her husband’s country.  She takes it upon herself to lead a small band of nobles to overturn the country’s corrupted government and restore glory and honor to the throne.  Hrathen is a priest and missionary for his god, a god who has ordered the destruction of Arelon if they do not convert.  It is Hrathen’s goal to win the conversion of an entire nation before that can happen.

This is the tale of three people whose separate stories interweave intimately with one another as they struggle to bring order out of chaos.  The story is filled with political intrigue and magic, dead men and demons, noblemen and traitors.  You come to love Raoden and Sarene and to hate Hrathen and his follower Dilaf.  Yet, in all cases you empathize with the characters, sympathizing with their dilemmas.  Sanderson has built rich characters in this book that drive the story onward to a climax and resolution that leaves you breathless.  This is by far one of the best and most enjoyable fantasy novels I’ve read.

While Elantris stands alone as a single, self-contained novel, this reader hopes that Sanderson will return to the land of Arelon again.  Many questions remain to be explored an answered – the origins of the Aons, the tying of the Aons to Arelon, the origin of the lake, and the origins of the Seons, to name just a few – as well as potential conflicts to be faced – Dakhor Monastery, Wyrn.  Sanderson has said that a return to Arelon is not necessarily out of the question.  In the meantime, I know that I’ll be collecting his other books and keeping him at the top of my reading list.

Upcoming Book Reviews: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

For the work of a 15-year-old writer, Eragon is an amazing story – I enjoyed it as much on the second read as I did on the first, perhaps even moreso.  The book tells the story of a young farmboy who stumbled across a dragon egg and becomes an unlikely hero.  He is forced to flee his home in order to save the people he cares about and thus begins the quest of a boy-turned-man and his dragon to find their new places in the world.

Eldest picks up the story immediately where Eragon leaves off and is, in my opinion, an even better story than the first volume in this trilogy.  Eragon makes his way to the forest of Du Weldenvarden to complete his training with the elves and become a Dragon Rider, one who will hopefully be powerful enough to face and overthrow the evil Galbatorix.  In the process, young Eragon faces numerous philosophical and intellectual challenges, in addition to his physical and magickal training.  He experiences heartache, betrayal, and loss before leaving us with a cliffhanger ending.  The evolution of Paolini’s writing style shines through in this second volume.

These two novels may be classified as Young Adult fiction, but they are well-crafted and strong enough for anyone to enjoy.  Paolini tackles some difficult topics and, in so doing, weaves together a world that is fascinatingly complex.  Lovers of fantasy fiction will enjoy these two books and eagerly await the arrival of the third.  It only remains to be seen, then, whether Paolini will extend this universe beyond this initial trilogy into an epic series to rival the likes of Middle Earth and the land of Shannara.

Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy has been likened in epic scope to fictional universes like Frank Herbert’s Dune and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion.  And in terms of size, the universe that Hamilton has built in this series is huge.¹ Read the rest of this entry »

1. It’s so big that the three books had to be further subdivided into six volumes.[back]

Pixar does it again.  Cars is another outrageously funny animated film from the successful film studio, the first produced by Pixar since becoming a part of the Walt Disney franchise.  Featuring an all-star cast of voice actors, including several noted race car drivers and commentators, Cars races to the top of the list of funny, family-friendly films that all will enjoy.  Like most of Pixar’s movies, adults will probably appreciate the humor best, but children will also be delighted by characters like Lightning McQueen, (Tow) Mater, and Sally.  Stick around through the movie credits for additional fun snippets.

A big part of the humor for me revolved around the redneck character Mater.  His over-the-top antics reminded me all too well of the hillbilly community in which I grew up.  The tractor tipping scene left me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face.

I admit to being somewhat apprehensive when I first saw previews for this film.  It appeared that this film might be less interesting and humorous than most of Pixar’s prior works, but I was delighted to be proven wrong on this count.  Cars makes a wonderful addition to their collection of animated films as well as a great addition to our personal movie library.

The DVD also contains two short films.  Mater and the Ghostlight is hilariously funny and will leave you in stitches, and One Man Band follows in the footsteps of Pixar’s delightful film shorts.

I’m looking forward to seeing Ratatouille, the next of Pixar’s upcoming animated films.

Rating: 5/5

My wife and I finally got to watch the third chapter in the X-men movie trilogy a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say that I found it to be a very satisfying ending for a successful comic-film run.  Now, mind you, I’ve never read any of the comic books – never had the interest or the money.  And I’ve heard a number of X-men comic book loyalists loudly complaining about what the film writers did to the X-men storyline in the third installment.  As someone whose sole exposure to the X-men franchise has been through the movies, however, I really enjoyed the way they tied everything up (and left just enough loose ends to tease the audience with the potential for a fourth film). 

In “The Last Stand” we finally get to the see the epic battle between mutants and humans and between mutants and mutants.  Magneto finally puts together his Brotherhood to face-off with the X-men.  Epic though it may have been, however, it was still less dramatic than one might have expected, considering the power of the mutants involved.  But there are limitations to what can be done on the silver screen, both in the visual range and in the time allotted.  Ultimately, the final product was more than acceptable, though the Phoenix’s ending was perhaps slightly cheesier and more simplistic than believability might allow.

The storyline for the third film was a logical progression of the first two and was, in my opinion, stronger than the second chapter.  Put together, the three films make a highly entertaining and enjoyable series to add to the collections of comic book lovers and speculative fiction enthusiasts everywhere.

Rating: 4/5

A while back, Tobias Buckell mentioned that he might have a few extra copies of his book Crystal Rain, if anyone wanted to put in a request for a copy to read and review.  So I went ahead and put my name in and was pleasantly surprised to receive a copy a couple of weeks ago.  I was amused that my wife, who claims that she’s not really a fan of science fiction, ‘kidnapped’ the book and wouldn’t let me have it back until she was done with it.  Fortunately, she’s a pretty fast reader, and I had it back within a couple of days.

There are some spoilers beyond this point, so if you would rather keep things a surprise, this would be a good place to stop reading.

Sage

I stumbled across a Firefox plugin for something called Sage yesterday.  Sage is an extension that loads your RSS feeds right into one of your Firefox tabs.  I figured I’d try it out and see if I could further centralize all the blogs I read into one application.

Unfortunately, I found Sage to be less useful and less user-friendly than Thunderbird for reading RSS feeds.  Sage has the ability to automatically find RSS feeds in any webpage.  You’d think this would be a good thing because it would eliminate the manual search-and-enter method of getting your feeds into your reader.  The only problem is that Sage does not always find the available feeds, and to the best of my knowledge, there is no easy way to manually enter those feeds into Sage yourself.  It’s either auto-detect or nothing at all. 

The other thing about Sage that I dislike is that it doesn’t archive past blog posts, unlike Thunderbird, which keeps a running archive of every article it has ever downloaded.  This makes it very difficult to go back to one of my favorite sites and browse through the history to find a particular article that I want to re-read, link to, or write about.

So, while Sage sounds like a good idea, it gets two thumbs down from me.  To date, I still haven’t found a feedreader that I like better than Thunderbird.

Halo 2 Soundtrack, Vol. 1

One of the best things about the rise of video game technology, besides the beauty of the graphics, is the quality of some of the soundtracks that are coming out.  Since the release of the Xbox, Halo and Halo 2 have remained consistently at the top of the popularity charts.  Martin O’Donnell composed the score for both games, and the soundtracks are absolutely phenomenal!  The music is well-written and inspiring, consisting of both orchestra and voice.  Indeed, O’Donnell has set the bar high for all other video game developers to produce soundtracks of equal quality and richness.

The release of Volume 2 has just been announced, an event that has been greatly anticipated by all Halo fans.  The beauty of the Halo soundtracks, however, is that you don’t necessarily have to be a fan of the games in order to enjoy the music, the quality is, in my opinion, that good.  So, if you love good music, check out the soundtracks for these two games.  I think you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Palm T2 Wireless Keyboard

I love my Palm T2.  My entire life is on this handy little device – my address book, my calendar, and much of my short story writing.¹ It’s extremely portable and extremely powerful.  It also has the ability to create and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files, a feature that I frequently use when I get a story idea that I need to write down quickly so I don’t lose it forever.  I simply pull out my handy-dandy wireless keyboard, pop it open, and plop my Palm down into the cradle and start typing.  I have done quite a bit of writing on my Palm, synchronizing it with my PC at home later on for further editing and modification.  In this respect the wireless keyboard is a lifesaver and a great tool to have on hand.

The only real problem I have had with the keyboard is that the wireless connection doesn’t always work properly.  I’m not entirely sure if the problem is with the infrared signal itself or if the keyboard driver on the Palm periodically falters, but I will sometimes find myself typing – absolutely nothing at all.  Sure, I’m hitting the keys, but nothing is appearing on the screen.  So, I have to turn the Palm off and back on, sometimes several times, before reacquiring the signal between the two devices.  Occasionally I even have to turn the keyboard off and back on, along with the Palm, for the two to work together properly.  It’s a frustration and a hassle, but when the two work together, it does allow me to write, whenever and wherever, I want when the need arises.  Until I can afford a laptop, this arrangement suffices.

1. Fortunately, everything is also backed up on my PC at home.[back]

I find myself in the ‘predicament’ where I am playing way too many different games right now.  On the down side, sometimes it’s hard to decide which game to play.  On the up side, I have plenty of variety and if I’m not in the mood for one game, I have several others to choose from.  I’m finding that I am increasingly drawn toward games with story, a far cry from the days of Pong and Super Mario Brothers.  The reviews below are only partial reviews, since every single one is a game in progress currently.

Advent Rising is the first in a trilogy under development.  The game developers signed SF&F author Orson Scott Card onto the project to help develop both the story and the dialogue, and you can certainly see his imprint in various places (e.g. FTL communication, the ansible). 

The storyline itself is captivating.  Humanity is on the brink of total annihilation.  A race of aliens who call themselves the Seekers have travelled the universe under the guise of peace in search of all human colonies.  The Seekers see themselves as the most advanced race in the universe, and they want to keep it that way.  However, certain religious prophecies have spoken of another race, humans, that will rise to a higher evolutionary plane, taking their place at the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder.  So, the Seekers are systematically hunting down and destroying all humans they find.

In Advent Rising you play the part of Gideon Wyeth, a human pilot who is fated to become the first human to trascend, acquiring the power to ultimately rid the universe of the Seeker pestilence.  You fight with him through many battles and revel in the acquisition of new strength and power.¹ The story drives forward at a breakneck pace, leaving hardly enough time to catch your breath.  It is a pleasure to play a game that has a great plot.  The dialogue and voiceacting is excellent.  Gideon even has the ability to fire at two targets at once, if you switch back and forth between very quickly.

There are, however, a handful of downsides to the game.  Some of the forward movement in the story, particularly at the beginning, is a little bit rushed.  It is almost as if the writers simply want to get you to ‘the good stuff’ and so hurry past some of the key development points.  The mechanics are also a little bit clunky, with the auto-targetting system forcing to look somewhere that may not be in the direction you want to go.² Advent Rising also attempts to follow in Halo’s footsteps by rendering the gameplay and cutscene graphics as you go.  This sometimes causes the game to slow down and stutter, an annoyance at the least and a fatal hindrace at the worst.

On a scale of 5, I give the story a 4.5 and the gameplay mechanics a 3.5.  If you love science fiction and video games, I recommend it.

Ok, so I don’t go exclusively for the story-driven video games.  Sometimes it’s just fun to get a fast-paced game to play purely for the fun of it.  In Burnout 3 your only mission is to win as many races as possible and take out as many opponents as you can.  The more gold medals you win, the more cars you earn.  Races span the USA, Europe, and the Far East.

The more opponents you crash, the more cars you earn.  The more points you acquire, the more cars you earn.  Get the picture?  It’s high-speed, high-action, and high-intensity paired with a diverse soundtrack.  As the driver you get to race everything from coupes to muscle cars to circuit racers to semi trucks.  If you want quick, mindless action that tests your reflexes, then Burnout 3 is the game for you.

On a scale of 5, I rate Burnout 3 as a solid 4.5 for both fun and mechanics.

A video game that features Disney characters.  A kids’ game, you think, right?  Not so.  Kingdom Hearts has quickly become one of my favorite games.

Someone is unlocking the doors between worlds, causing each world to blink out of existence, one by one.  It is up to Sora, as the wielder of the Keyblade, to figure out why as he searches for his friends Riku and Kairi.  He teams up with Donald and Goofy as they search through numerous worlds to solve these riddles, meeting dozens of familiar Disney faces along the way.  The voiceactors feature many of the same people who were cast in the original films.

The mechanics of the game are very simple to learn and use, and the story so far has been first-rate.  Sora has been exiled from his island home and thrust into the heart of the action as the Keyblade has chosen him to be its master.  Now, Sora must track down the keyholds on each world and lock them to prevent their total destruction.  He makes many friends and enemies along the way to discovering the secrets of these strange circumstances. 

Disney and Squaresoft have created a believeable world where Disney and Final Fantasy characters can co-exist.  I am looking forward to seeing how this chapter ends and where Kingdom Hearts 2 (scheduled for distribution at the end of this month) picks up.

On a scale of 5, I rate the story a 5 and the mechanics a 4.5.

This is a bit of a blast from the past.  The Legend of Dragoon is one of my favorite PSOne games.  It was developed by the same people who brought us the Final Fantasy series.  The story follows Dart as he strives to save the world from ultimate destruction.  Along the way, he discovers his fate to become one of the legendary Dragoon, humans chosen to wield the power of the dragon in the fight against evil.  He pairs up with six others, all who become Dragoon along the way, and together they move inexorably toward the final confrontation.

One of the things that I most love about this game is the ability affect the battle during the actual attack sequences.  Dragoon is built around the turn-based style of gameplay that the Final Fantasy series is famous for.  Your character comes up, you select the action for him (or her) to perform, and then sit back and watch as the character carries out that action.  In Dragoon, you take an active part in helping reinforce each of your characters attacks by helping them complete their ‘Additions’.  Each successful completion boosts the strength of the attack and unlocks more powerful additions.

The Legend of Dragoon is a strong game with a great story.  The dialogue is a little stilted, as is typical of any Japanese game that has been translated into English.  However, I think you will find that you can overlook the awkwardness and see a terrific game with an exciting story to drive it.

On a scale of 5, I rate the story at 4.5 and the mechanics at 4.5.

I have two other games currently in progress, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, but I think I’ll call it quits here for now.  I’ll likely review these two at a later date, after I have gotten a little further through them.

1. Gideon acquires powers like Lift, Aeon Pulse, Surge, and Negate[back]
2. Though, once you get used to the system, it gets much easier to handle.[back]