Knuckles Dawson

Yes, today is day 420. Don't think I'll be celebrating it in any particular fashion.

On Friday I picked up Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, the Collector's Edition. What a January jem. Along with all the new friend requests I've been getting (see below post), I've been getting a bunch of messages asking "How's Lost Planet? Is it any good?" Short answer: Yes.

As the post title would suggest, the game is MechAssault, crossed with Starship Troopers, taking place on (sorry Dan), Hoth. I'm having a lot of fun but only a few missions in (I'm playing on Hard in preparation for Extreme). The standard controls are alright, but the two alternatives closely resemble those found in Gears of War, so I'm using scheme B for the time being. When cycling through the zoom, you can go first person, but your situational awareness is greatly decreased from that view. Still, I think this is a very entertaining game and the achievements seem alright.

Online is fun, but I need to get some friends in some games to play with, as the random folks aren't exactly the most civil, and playing on a Japanese server isn't providing that "LAN" feeling. As time progresses it shouldn't be a problem to get some familiar faces in some online matches.

In any case, send me a message and I'll see if we can throw down in the snow (down).

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Welcome to 2007.

My Christmas and New Year was very nice, but due to the nature of our celebration I couldn't report on it in as timely a manner as I would have liked. My uncle (Doug) and cousin (Nathan) from England came down to go snowboarding for the holidays. You may have seen Nate's comments here and there on the site, as well a few posts on the forum. It was great to have them down here, and we had a lot of fun up at Whister/Blackcomb from the 24th to the 27th and on into the interior to Big White for the 31st and 1st. A great way to start off the year if you ask me.

Whistler was pretty good, it snowed for the first 3 days, although getting a Live compatible connection was a bit of a hassle. Apparently, Telus ADSL doesn't have a sufficient MTU to connect to Live for Xbox 360, while I had little issues connecting to Telus with my original Xbox. Which left me with having to hunt down a different internet cafe than the first one I tried. Thanks to Aidan for all of his help, though. He even let me try to connect directly into the modem to bypass the firewall. The Christmas Miracle would reveal itself to be the manager/chef of Gone...Bakery & Soup Co., Todd. After attempting to use the Shaw Cable at the bistro, he offered us to go to his humble abode and use his connection, also Shaw. Thankfully, it worked like a charm, although it timed out when initially trying to connect, so despite correcting the internal clock, and showing my friends and messages, it prompted me to "Test Connection". I signed back in after canceling the troubleshooter with no problems. So that covered me for the 25th. The 26th and 27th were a little more complicated. Unfortunately, Todd was unavailable to lend his services for those days, so I had to resort to measures of extreme inconvenience. Drive back to Vancouver, from Whistler (77 miles each way), log in at home, do my thing both before and after midnight, grab a 3 hour nap, and then return to Whistler for one more day on the slopes. My justification is that December 26th was day 400, so to end it on 399 would be a slap in the face.

Still, the time on the hill was nice, and on the 27th, it was nice and sunny, so that was a plus. The backpack continued to own and grab attention (93% positive), with no hiccups due to being in a cold, and potentially wet, enviroment.

The main gifts for this year were the snowboard trips, so the physical gifts were obviously scant. I received a set of high quality rechargeable batteries (for said backpack), and some nice Salomon socks for snowboarding. That being said, because of my primary hobby, and the timing of when it's major releases are, I did buy myself some things within the last month or so that could count as a holiday gifts. These would include:

• Five (5) Sumo Lounge Omni chairs, 3 grey, 2 black.
• A PS3, that among three others was just chilling at a local Zellers.
• Viva Piñata. Just got into it yesterday, and it looks to be filled with fun.
• Wireless Xbox 360 Steering Wheel. Played around with it a bit in PGR3, and I plan on giving it a shot with NFS: Carbon and when I decide to actually open my copy of Test Drive Unlimited.
• Resistance: Fall of Man. Wow, the textures look so bland compared to the rich detail found in Gears of War. Maybe I need to give it more time, though.

So it's not like I don't have any new toys to mess around with.

Big White was really nice, and the hotel's business center was compatible with Xbox Live, so that was handy. The first day saw a little sun and the conditions were alright. It was close to the end of the day when we found the preferred run ride on. The next day was snowing and a bit foggy at the top of the lift, but that just gave way to fresh powder to tear through. I was going excessively fast, and it showed. I'll post pictures later, you'll be amused.

So that was my Christmas and New Years, didn't really party too much, just plowed.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, Tuesday, was Halloween. And I had, as you know, an awesome costume lined up for the night. So, I met up with friends of the family, and their kids and I went out trick or treating. I was, of course, the Tech Support Suicide by Hanging (and slit wrists). Skye was a geisha and Oly (short for Oliver, pronounced like the basic skateboard jump trick) was a CTU agent from the show 24. I suggested he go by "Agent Stiles". Which he did. Which was stylin'. Pictures of their costumes can be found at the KD Exposure, my new Flickr section. We headed out around 6 PM and went guising for about 2.5 hours.

Since I was with about 4 other kids, I easily got away with holding a bag in front of the door. I never said "Trick or Treat!" though, I instead would just shout "I'm Deeeaaad!" in a manner that was developed back in PDZ with APKJester, In any case, I cleaned house, and while most had no problems with me stealing candy from all the other children, with the ease being akin to likes of a baby, others would question me on my age, or size so something, and I'd say that the attention to detail and originality in my costume justifies my age as well as them giving me candy. And they eventually would, as no one turned me down. All in all a good Halloween.

So, Bastelyon emails me yesterday at about 9:15 AM with the following:
Do you have a number I can call you at? I've got some good news for you. :)
I shoot him back my cell and not a minute later he calls me. The news is really "good :)". Not only does it trump the other subject-that-cannot-be-mentioned, it also takes place sooner, but is in a location far more iconic, and one that I haven't been to before. On top of that, my attendance is far more valued in this case, which is really cool. I basically spent the rest of my day at work on the ninth cloud of euphoria.

After work, I called up various EB Games locations regarding Need For Speed: Carbon Collector's Edition as well as F.E.A.R. None of them had NFS:C, and only a couble had F.E.A.R.. The local Best Buy did, though, and so I grabbed both of those. So, I've decided that EB Games sucks, again, after I gave them a chance to prove themselves useful. We'll see how I handle Gears of War. I played Carbon a bit on my Alt gamertag, and found it to be very entertaining, I just need to get my hands on a VW Golf R32 as soon as possible, and beat the game with it. As that has been my tradition in various racing games.

The final bit has been moved so you have to click this entry to read it. It's not exactly something someone should be exposed to on a site like this, but you're welcome to read it if you want.

Continue reading "Tricks, Treats, Tony, Transactions and Torment" »

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Damn. Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a beautiful, beautiful game. As you can see, I've been playing it a bunch. The single player is great, and the looks stunning on my 56" Samsung DLP HDTV, and sounds beautiful on my JVC 500 Watt 5.1 Surround Sound System.

This past weekend has been a focus on the Online component, in particular, the Co-op Challenges. I started playing them Friday night, with friend and squadmate, II Armag3dd0n II. Having owned the previous three games, my hacking and neck-breaking skill shone through in mere minutes and I felt right at home. Even though the "accessibility" is just another way of saying "watered down for the EveryGamer", I had fun, and it felt like the other spies vs. mercs in previous games. The upside, is that for Co-op, I ran into a bunch of people who were very capable in keeping up with me and my strategies. As long as they could talk, knew the route/plan, and could follow orders/directions, we were able to nab Gold in a few tries.

Speaking of which, I got all Golds---except for one. Mission 12. Which is a 1 star difficulty Double Agent mission. 1-11 and 13-18 have Gold. Mission 12 doesn't even have a medal. Why, you ask? In true KD fashion I've set myself up with 3 achievements that I can grab at any time. Pathetic, I know, but at least I'm looking ahead.

While helping HOLLATIP 2, whom I came across by chance on the opposing team in Saints Row matchmaking, get some of the EXPERT achievemnts for SP:DA, I got a message from my good buddy French Frye. You might remember him as "Anonymous/jerry/Onion Fart", and all I have to say is very well played, bro. He asked if I was playing with Major Nelson, whom he had on his Friends List (lucky bastard). Then said "nvm" as the Maj had gone offline, I suppose. I take this cue as a reminder to send him a random friend request. It went through! I quickly sent him a voice mail saying "Hey, I'd really appreciate if you accepted this, as I got through by luck, but if not, that's perfectly fine. Catch ya later." I then send a message to French Frye thanking him for putting the thought in my head, especially since he has campaigned to Major on a weekly basis on my behalf to send me an FR. I even tried to coax him into taking himself off to make a spot for me. Despite my hardest bargaining, he wouldn't budge, and rightfully so. Thankfully, it all worked out ahead of schedule, as I expected to nab him by November 22nd, 2006. The reasoning behind that, though, I'll go into detail a little later.

While we're on about Major Nelson and I, here's a picture of us at PAX '06 before we did the interview.



The Dreamcast shirt cost me $50 CDN. The Backpack with built in speakers is a SoundKase SoundSak Sonic Full Audio Backpack, which cost me over $200 CDN after shipping and brokerage fees were tagged onto that. It was well received at the convention, and I would supply music in exchange for skipping ahead in lines.

LUMINES LIVE! is also a lot of fun. It's also cheaper than the retail version for PSP, much prettier than any other version, has 5.1 sound effects and music, and is just as addictive so I'm not exactly equating the price point and add-on packs as forced anal copulation. I just think that this may be the first step towards digital distribution of retail-esque content, and as such was not put in its own category of title, but put into Live Arcade. which it's kinda not. It's half Retail, Half Arcade. Eh, we'll see how this affects future titles and their price/distribution/classification. Bottom Line, though: I really, really like LL!. My first foray into Lumines was the cell phone version, which I was really good at, being able to max out the score (999.999) without too much effort, just time. LL! is a lot more difficult, and rightfully so, plus it's score doesn't have a foreseeable maximum. I'll keep plugging away at it, though.

I Grabbed some long overdue achievements on Table Tennis and The Outfit with Jester on Saturday, and we'll try to get more Outfit in there as time goes along. Although we were having some trouble getting some of the online achievements in Outfit, and I'll have to do some research on the required parameters. Oh well.

In real life I hit "Richmond Sushi" on Saturday, which is an all-you-can-eat sushi place in---*drum roll*---Richmond, BC. It was decked out in a Halloween theme, all the employees were in costume (dracula, zombies, little bo peep, frankenstein, etc.), and there was even a fog machine at the entrance. Now, I can eat sushi, which to say, put it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. It's an acquired taste, one that I haven't gotten too used to yet. But they had plenty on the menu that didn't involve raw fish and seaweed. Like, for example, some cooked chicken shish kabob, that I had like, 6 skewers of. It was delicious. At the very least, I left somewhat full. Ask iEyeCaptain, he's seen me first hand eat basket after basket of "Red Robin's Bottomless Fries™". I, like my father before me, have hollow legs.

The Las Vegas Season 4 Premiere was really good on Friday, especially in HD, and I saw Domino earlier in the week, which was over-the-top awesome. Also in HD.

So, what'd you think of the Gears of War TV/Film trailer. I thought it was beautiful. And I find it kinda funny that I posted about Donnie Darko back in September, which features Gary Jules' rendition of the Tears for Fears song, Mad World. I find it kinda sad that I didn't bother to mention the song and its hold on me since my initial viewings of both the Theatrical and Director's cut. Either way, I feel the song fits the trailer amazingly, just as it did the movie. I find it hard to tell you that I've been listening to the song on repeat for the vast majority of writing this entry. I find it hard to take some continuity errors, so I'll point the following out:

• When Marcus is running past the window and the enemy gets out of crouch position, he (the Locust) just appears, without moving into frame from the bottom.
• In the infested room, the final shot of the stochastic fire on the spidery baddie, the legs (particularly the ones on the right), have the eyes of the other enemies shine through it.

Then again, I just have an eye for picking those kinda things up, given my history in filming, editing, etc.

Damn, that's a lot of reading I threw at you guys. Sorry, just had to play catch-up with what's been going on.

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, I've been playing a bunch of Saints Row, and on the weekend I completed the main single player storyline. The ending(s) were good, but I'm surprised they don't have a 3rd ending for when you complete the game 100% and play the last mission. That would have made sense in the context of the game.

I'm still pushing through the activities now, having completed the Snatch and Insurance Fraud and currently working on the Escort and Hijacking. I recommend completing Snatch and Insurance Fraud as soon as you can, as the rewards for completing them are very helpful in making the game more entertaining. I have yet to play online yet, but iEyeCaptain and I probably will get some co-op/multiplayer on sometime this week. So far, the only radio station I've listened to is 89.0 Generation X, but I find its music to be quiet catchy.

In terms of a comparison to the GTA franchise, I find both have their advantages. Saints lets you save on the fly, and even lets you make the conrols more GTA-like (Scheme B for Walking/Driving is for the most part better, except for missions where you're a passenger with unlimited ammo, then switch driving to Scheme A). At the very least, this gives me a taste of how awesome a sandbox game can be on Xbox 360, even if its not in a mall infested with Zombies. After all, it's still another year until GTAIV drops. So, what do you guys think of Saints Row?

Posted by Knuckles Dawson at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)