Culture from the darker side

It isn’t very often that a comic strip comes along that is truly great. Calvin and Hobbes though clearly fall in that Category.

For ten years (from 1985 to 1995) we could read their daily adventures in the newspaper, and even now, ten years after, they are still being printed on a daily basis.

Bill Watterson, the inventor of Calvin and Hobbes went pretty much into hiding shortly after the last strip ran, he never licensed any of the characters as mechandise so essentially Calvin and Hobbes was finished.

Now, ten years later we finally get the complete Calvin and Hobbes, three hardcover books containing all of the Calvin and Hobbes strips, including the sunday strips and Covers, as well as a new foreword by Watterson.

The strips are printed on glossy paper and are nicely offset of the background and the books are hardcover bound and are easy to open / turn.

The whole package weights in at a whopping 10kg and it doesn’t come cheap. List price for the whole collection is CAN$200 but if you look around online you will be able to find it for less.

If you enjoy intelligent reading, then this is clearly something for you, and if you are a fan of Calvin ande Hobbes already it is a given.

Rating 5/5

Michael Crichton has a reputation for techno thrillers, some of them better, some of them not so much. A lot of his books have been turned into movies as well and he has “invented” the TV Show ER.

In State of Fear Crichton becomes a bit more ambitious, it centers around the threat of terrorism and global warming, but the core message of the book is a lot simpler yet more complex: Fear makes people adhere to your rule.

The book is not without it’s critics, charging him with misrepresentation of the actual facts and concentrating on his inherit criticism of Global Warming. This may or may not have merit, but I do believe that the critics miss the main point of the story: Is everything we read in the media true or is it all (or most of it) fear-mongering with a bigger goal in mind?

Unfortunately Crichton is partly to blame for this as he really only gives this a side note and not much more.

Social commentary and criticism aside though, the book is entertaining, I pretty much read it in one day and enjoyed it, it is easy to read / enjoy and the science that is presented is done so in layman terms.

I do not allow myself to judge on the science as I am by far not the expert on environmental issues, but I do enjoy the idea that there is more to things than we may know and maybe it can get people to do their own research.

Rating 3/5

This movie should have everything to make it good: Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack, two actors I truly like. It also has a story that is “out there” and yet, the movie doesn’t quite deliver what it promises.

In essence “The Ice Harvest” is the story of a heist gone bad, not a truly original idea, but with enough quirky characters it should provide entertaining. Unfortunately the person who was doing the timing for the gags in this movie must have eaten a box of valium then as funny as it is, the timing is just off. Maybe with some beers it would have worked better.

At the end of it it has to be concluded that the trailer holds most of the gags, and is even better from a timing standpoint.

Another Hollywood success.

Rating 2.4/5

World War II is the thing in games these days. It was nice and clean cut, Americans good, Germans bad, the rest just follows automatically.

In COD2 - BRO we get to follow the Big Red One, a legendary Army Unit across North America and Europe in a attempt to defeat Nazi Germany.

The game itself is clearly a first person shooter with a military theme and unfortunately quite limited in what you can do. You fight with a squat which is mostly invulnerable to enemy fire unless their deaths are scripted. This can be a bit irritating as they are also quite bad shots, mainly in the idea that you as the player get something to shoot at, but it can be rather irritating when you have them crash down a door, start firing and not hitting anyone. So it is not so much a squad based game than a first person shooter with some dressing.

More problematic though is the stupidity of some of the enemies where you don’t “trip” them if you don’t follow a path. On more than one occasion did I end up coming up behind them they not reacting even when I was shooting them. This is utterly irritating in 2005.

Then there is also the “magic well” of never ending opponents who “materialize” without any understanding on where they came from (I am still stuck in a mission where I can’t break to the target zone because I have re-spawning enemies and my own squad isn’t even following.

The balance of weapons is a bit off as well, the sniper rifle is so overly powerful that you hardly get it, and in multiplayer it is just devastating (one shot, you’re dead, regardless on where you’re being hit).

Overall the game is fun, but there are some decisive flaws in the logic and flow of the game that make prevent one from suspending disbelieve and get emerged into the game.

Rating: 2.5/5

The White Road is the fourth book in the Charlie Parker series and takes us deeper into the darkness than any of the books before.

In South Carolina, a young black man faces the death penalty for the death of Marianne Larousse, daughter of one of the wealthiest man in the state. Charlie “Bird” Parker is about to enter a living nightmare, a dreamscape so sorrow haunted by the murderous spectre of a hooded woman, by a black car waiting for a passenger that never comes, and by the sinister complicity of both friends and enemies in Larousse’s brutal death. Charlie follows the White Road, a place where the paths of the living and the dead converge.

With the “White Road” Connolly sends Charlie Parker further down a dark path that started with the death of his family. While “The Killing Kind” was a bit subdued in it’s “cruelty” and fright with the White Road we take a huge step forward into the dark spot that Parker seems to be going to fast.

It is still a page turner, Connolly knows exactly on how to write and keep you on the edge and unlike King he is not stretching the store just to create more pages.

Rating: 4/5

I admit, I am not a fan of the Harry Potter books, the writing really didn’t catch me when I tried to read it and I didn’t find it too interesting to begin with, and yes, I am aware that makes me an outsider in this time of everybody reading Harry Potter.

I do admit though that I enjoyed the movies, they are a nice distraction from the daily grind and are still fantastic enough.

It all centres around the Goblet of Fire that is the “price” for the three mages tournament. Somehow though instead of having three mages from different schools competeing in the tournament Harry Potter’s name is also drawn, and thus he is cast into the competition.

To make things worse Voldemort seems to be back and wants to get his revenge on Harry.

I have not read the book as stated before, but it seems they dropped quite a bit out of the 800 page door stop that the book is in order to make it fit into a 150+ minute movie. Does it take away from the movie? Not having read the book I would say no, but then I am not a “Pot”head
As a movie it works pretty well, so it is fun and entertaining, though obviously seems to miss some of the depth that the book can offer.

Rating: 3/5

The Killing kind is the third book featuring John Connolly’s PI Charlie “Bird” Parker.

This time around a mass grave is discovered in Maine and a former girlfriend of his being murdered and a former Senator wants Charlie Parker to find her murderer. He soon finds himself in a scenario in which he realizes that there is far more to the death of his former lover than meets the eye at first.

He has a run in with “Mr. Pudd” a person that proves to be much more than meets the eye and an obsession with Spiders.

The book, like the other ones, moves as a fast pace and blends the scary with the mundane which makes it all the more eerie. Unlike previous installments of the series, Charlie Parker never really leaves New England yet the ghost of the Travelling Man and his family are still haunting him.

Rating: 3/5

In 1997 the first person shooter genre took a leap into the future with the release of Half-Life. Half-Life was revolutionary as it put an emphasis both on story and action and didn’t sacrifice one for the other. It was probably the closest we had come so far to have an interactive movie played out for us. It featured the most dazzling 3D animations and overall was a huge leap forward.

Six years later Half-Life 2 came out, and it was…. Good.

Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and shine. Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No-one is more deserving of a rest. And all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until… well, let’s just say your hour has come again. The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes.

The man with the suitcase is back, and Gordon Freeman (our hero) is dropped straight into City 17, a “refuge” for humans and aliens. Somehow the world isn’t quite the same anymore as it was when we left it all behind. Soon we get to explore City 17 and quite a few other places in our attempt to get rid of the alien invasion and all the other things that have gone wrong since our last adventure, only to be rewarded with a cliffhanger in the end.

Time, Dr. Freeman? Is it really that time again? It seems as if you only just arrived. You’ve done a great deal in a small time span. You’ve done so well, in fact, that I’ve received some interesting offers for your services.

[G-Man picks something off the frozen body of Alyx]

Technology wise an updated 3D engine with ultra realistic physics engine immerses us in the world, unfortunately the interaction is mostly limited to shooting people or things, though in a truly amazing way. It is just too bad that there is no real interaction between you and other characters. Gordon never seems to say anything and the fact that the game is utterly linear is rather unfortunate. The game is very open, or so it seems, but much like Fable it puts you on tracks and the exploring is rather limited, this is maybe the biggest drawback on the game, that the illusion of freedom isn’t as good as it could be.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t contemplate them… but these *are* extraordinary times.
[the world around Gordon fades away, into the familiar "Star Tram" from Half-Life 1]

But is the game fun? Oh definitely, I finished it in two days from start to finish, it is very logical in the way it is structured and the weapons are utter fun (especially the dark Gravity gun). Fights at times are utterly intense, to a point where it becomes seriously frustrating but unfortunately the game engine at times really drives the XBOX too its limits with occasional slow downs that it becomes a slide show for a couple of seconds. It can be irritating at times though it has not really caused a lot of problems from the game play standpoint.

Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you… if and when your time comes round again. I do apologize for what must seem to you an arbitrary imposition, Dr. Freeman. I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of… well… I’m really not at liberty to say. In the meantime… this is where I get off.
[G-Man walks away from Gordon, adjusts his tie, and walks into a white opening

Rating: 4/5

I never played the first one, though according to a sticker on it the first one was the best selling Star Wars Game of all time. Guess that makes the sequel good too?

The game is heavy on the multiplayer aspect, both with Split screen and via XOBX Live which tends to be a blessing in disguise. My attempts at playing online so far have been rather crappy, basically kiddies killing each other, even if you’re on the same team, or you have to be a a member of a clan, yee-ha (yes, it is Canadian Finals Rodeo Week here in Edmonton).

So I ended up looking at the single player aspect a bit more and have to admit: It is actually fun.

The game concept is rather simple. You are either engaged in ground or space battle where you can chose from an array of ships or character classes. Unfortunatly the different classes pretty much behave the same way for all of the different factions (Empire, Republic, Rebels or CIS).

The game features two main game modes, campaign and galactic conquest.

In the campaign mode you follow a crack unit of the Republic, the 501st across the galaxy in a quest to establish the empire. The different missions are introduced by cut scenes taken straight from Star Wars III while the game play tends to be frantic.

Galactic Conquest provides three basic scenarios which set you up with different a faction each time and it is sort of a mixture between strategy and action.

The main goal in missions is to capture Command Points, which means basically you have to go to a pre-determined location and stay there long enough for it to change colour, this also acts as a re-spawn point.

The action can be quite frantic at times, with several dozen computer controlled players dodging it out. Different levels can feature up to 300 characters engaged in battle.

Overall it is a fun game, but unfortunatly also very limited in the way as what you can do, the “going out and capture CP” can get boring fast even the added strategy element in Galactic Conquest only does so much.

Overall it is a fun game, just be prepared to play it in small doses.

Rating 3.5/5

Are you claustrophobic? Afraid of the dark?

If you can answer yes to either of these questions you may want to pass on this movie.

The Descent ravels in both of these movies and then he adds some cave dwelling predators.

The Descent tells the story of six friends who are planning in going on a caving expedition. Unbeknown to the five of them Juno, who organizes it, changes their destination cave which means a lot of trouble for them once they find themselves trapped after a cave-in with no apparent way out.

The situation becomes even more dangerous when they are being attacked by some kind of animal that seems to dwell in the cave. One by one the group is being picked off until…..

Neil Marshall shows that he has a hand for creating suspense and horror. If you are afraid of the dark the truly dark setting of the movie will get to you. If you are afraid of confined spaces the excellent camera work of Sam McCurdy will make you want to stand up and walk around. All of this while there is something lurking in the dark.

Hollywood has played with the same sentiment quite recently in “The Cave” but where Hollywood utterly failed (the reasons of which we could talk about for quite some time) Marshall succeeds, maybe because there is no “focus group study” done in the UK yet in order to get a movie green lighted.

At the end of the day the all female casts clearly adds to the drama as well, much more so because they defy the hollywood stereotype as well.

If you have seen The Cave and thought it was rubbish, then fear not and see The Descent. If you haven’t seen The Cave, don’t bother and go straight on down.

If you are squeamish, maybe you should stay away from both movies and just treat yourself to an episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants.