Using "ls" in Windows

As my professional life moves into a more UNIX direction I have found myself more and more often trying to execute UNIX commands in Windows. One such command is "ls" - to list the contents of a directory. I know that cygwin binaries can be compiled for Windows to get ls functionality, but I decided to solve the problem a different way. I've written a batch file that wraps the "dir" command in windows. To work properly, both "ls.bat" and "getstrlen.bat" from an earlier post on this blog, will need to be present in your PATH.

I don't have time to explain this code right now, but I will make an effort if anyone asks.

ls.bat:

@echo off

if not "%1"=="" goto gotargs
echo Executing: dir /b&dir /b
goto done

:gotargs
set ARGS1=%1
set CHECK=%ARGS1:~0,1%
if "%CHECK%"=="-" (set CURROPT=%ARGS1% & goto parsearg1)
if not "%9"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9"&goto done)
if not "%8"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8"&goto done)
if not "%7"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7"&goto done)
if not "%6"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6"&goto done)
if not "%5"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4 %5"&goto done)
if not "%4"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3 %4"&goto done)
if not "%3"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2 %3"&dir /b "%1 %2 %3"&goto done)
if not "%2"=="" (echo Executing: dir /b "%1 %2"&dir "%1 %2"&goto done)
echo Executing: dir /b %1&dir /b %1
goto done

:parsearg1
call getstrlen %CURROPT%
REM echo Got strlen: %strlen%
set ARGLEN=%strlen%
set count=%ARGLEN%
set i=1
set newargstr=
set CURROPT=%CURROPT: =%
set remain=%CURROPT%
goto parsearg2

:parsearg2
echo>%temp%\helper.bat set token=%%remain:~0,1%%
echo>>%temp%\helper.bat set CURROPT=%CURROPT%
echo>>%temp%\helper.bat set remain=%%CURROPT:~-%count%%%
call %temp%\helper.bat
del %temp%\helper.bat
if %i% GTR 2 goto resolvearg
:argresolved
set /a i="i+1"
set /a count="count-1"
if "%count%"=="-1" goto parsed
goto parsearg2

:resolvearg
if "%token%"=="l" goto arg_l
if "%token%"=="s" goto arg_s
if "%token%"=="a" goto arg_a
if "%token%"=="t" goto arg_t
if "%token%"=="r" goto arg_r
if "%token%"=="R" goto arg_CR
goto argresolved

:arg_l
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /n=%)
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /q=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /n /q
goto argresolved

:arg_s
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /n=%)
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /q=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /n /q
goto argresolved

:arg_a
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /a=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /a
goto argresolved

:arg_t
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /o:d=%)
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /t:w=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /o:d /t:w
goto argresolved

:arg_r
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr:d=-d%)
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /t:w=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /t:w
goto argresolved

:arg_CR
if not "%newargstr%"=="" (set newargstr=%newargstr: /s=%)
set newargstr=%newargstr% /s
goto argresolved


:parsed
if not "%9"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9"&goto done)
if not "%8"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8"&goto done)
if not "%7"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7"&goto done)
if not "%6"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5 %6"&goto done)
if not "%5"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4 %5"&goto done)
if not "%4"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3 %4"&goto done)
if not "%3"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% "%2 %3"&dir %newargstr% "%2 %3"&goto done)
if not "%2"=="" (echo Executing: dir %newargstr% %2&dir %newargstr% %2&goto done)
echo Executing: dir %newargstr%&dir %newargstr%
goto done


:done

How different is 1080i from 1080p really?

I've had a lot of people ask me about the new HD buzz words floating around on the Internet and in store ads. There seems to be a lot of confusion on the subject of whether or not 1080p is better than 1080i by a large enough margin that the discerning consumer needs to be careful of them. Most recently this question came in the form of an email, and I thought I'd share my answer.

Question: What is the loss of quality between 1080p and 1080i?

Answer: That actually depends on the source material and the monitor - it's a very complicated question to answer but all things being equal the loss of quality would be half of the horizontal resolution.

Another way of putting it:
1080i:
1920x540 pixels displayed at once

1080p:
1920x1080 pixels displayed at once

But this isn't an exact comparison.

The Long Explanation:
Video recorded natively at 1080i will be broken down into two separate fields (540 lines x2). One field (commonly called Field A) will consist of all of the even lines from the original frame and the other field (Field B) will consist of all of the odd lines from the original frame. The idea is that when these two fields are displayed one right after the other quickly enough, that you appear to see the whole original frame (1080 lines) but it only requres 540 horizontal lines to do it. Essentially 1080i relies on tricking your eye into thinking it is seeing more than it actually is.

The interleaving technique was developed with CRTs in mind. Most fixed-resolution displays (LCD/Plasma/DLP) can't actually display an interlaced picture (or rather don't because it would look like crap on that type of display). Instead these displays have image processors that use a variety of techniques to take the interlaced signal and turn it into a progressive signal for whatever the native resolution of the display is. This is where the interlacing really presents a problem, because when being shown on a progressive display, the material has to be "de-interlaced" first. The image processor has three basic options, line-doubling, interpolation, or field overlap.

Line-doubling is the easiest but it is wasteful- just take one of the two fields and show every line twice, discarding the other field entirely - sure, it's using all of the available pixels, but you're really only seeing half of the picture.

Interpolation is the hardest to do and it lowers fidelity- the image processor will "make up" the missing lines by averaging color and lighting info between each pair of lines in a single field and discard the other field entiely. The picture is a little clearer, but you've lost some fidelity because you're no longer seeing the true picture.

Field overlap is the most problematic but provides the best fidelity. Simply taking the two separate fields and laying them on top of each other will give you the complete picture, however if the material was originally recorded in an interlaced format (1080i for example) each field will have a separate time index. What this means is that objects in motion between fields will not line up correctly and this creates an effect called "combing" - where the right and left edges of the moving object will appear like the teeth of a comb.

Most current image processors will use a combination of these techniques, constantly sampling the source material and trying to determine the best method. A lot of progressive scan DVD players have a Video Mode setting that will let you choose something like "Film,Video,Auto" so you can override the image processor if it isn't choosing the right technique.

The "Film" setting is of particular relavence. This is also sometimes called "3:2 pulldown" or "Inverse Telecine". Basically it is a smart version of the field overlap technique. When film material is transferred to video it is run through a machine called a Telecine. The Telecine basically takes each full frame of the film and breaks it down into separate fields to be played back on an interlaced display. Because the frame rate of film (24 frames per second) and interlaced video (~30x2 fields per second) have a constant ratio of 2:3 the Telecine machine uses that ratio to turn every two frames into five fields - that means that our of every five fields one of them will be a duplicate. When your TV or DVD player (it doesn't really matter where the image processor is) detects or is set to Inverse Telecine mode, it uses that known ratio to reassemble the original frames from the interleaved fields.

So the conclusion of the long answer is this:
--If your source material is video (i.e. it was captured/created in 1080i) then your resolution loss between 1080i and 1080p is 540 horizontal lines, because this information will most likely be padded with either fake video information, or line-doubled making every other line redundant. This would be true of most TV shows and video games.

--If your source material was originally film (i.e. it was run through a telecine machine to be made 1080i) and your TV has a decent image processor, then the individual fields will be reassembled into the full 1080p frames resulting in essentially no loss of picture quality whatsoever.

String Length with Windows Batch

I've often found myself needing a reliable way to determine string length with windows batch files. I know there are probably add-ons or third-party solutions, but I prefer to do things with the base system whenever possible. Since I wasn't able to find any solutions, I figured I'd contribute one now that I've written it. This is my code, I don't care if you use it or what you use it for. I hope it works for you and if not, sorry. It relies on the set /a command, which I believe is exclusive to XP (it might work in 2000 but I no longer have a box to test it on.)

getstrlen.bat:

@echo off
REM Sets the variable "strlen" to the length of the first argument.
REM
REM Usage:
REM getstrlen

if "%1"=="" (echo getstrlen error: no argument &goto lengthset)
if not "%2"=="" (echo getstrlen error: too many arguments &goto lengthset)

set count=1
set strlen=

:checklen
echo>%temp%\checker.bat set STRING=%1
echo>>%temp%\checker.bat set equal=no
echo>>%temp%\checker.bat set CHECK=%%STRING:~-%count%%%
echo>>%temp%\checker.bat if "%%STRING%%"=="%%CHECK%%" (set equal=yes)
call %temp%\checker.bat
del %temp%\checker.bat
if "%equal%"=="yes" (set strlen=%count% & goto lengthset)
set /a count="count+1"
if not "%count%"=="256" goto checklen
set strlen=GE256
:lengthset

This will set a session variable called "strlen" which will be assigned the numerical length of whatever string you pass to getstrlen.bat.

Example:
c:\>getstrlen.bat Badger
c:\>echo %strlen%
6
c:
How it works:
The :checklen marker is the beginning of a loop that increments an iteration variable called count.

Every time through the loop the variable passed to the batch is checked by string substitution. The logic looks at a number of characters (represented by the count variable) and compares that to the string itself.

For example, if the string being checked was "Badger", the first time through the loop "Badger" (represented by the variable STRING) would be checked against "B" (represented by the variable CHECK) because count is set to 1. Since they don't match, the script will increment count by 1 and jump back up to :checklen. This time it will check "Badger" against "Ba" because count is set to 2. The process repeats until the sixth time around when both CHECK and STRING are equal to "Badger" at that point count is set to 6. When the helper.bat script finds that the two are equal the value of check is assigned to strlen and the script exits.

Limitations:
The script will only verify strings up to 255 characters long (hopefully you're not trying to use Windows batch for stuff bigger than that!). If you try to check a string longer than that the value of strlen will be set to "GE256" meaning "Greater or equal to 256". And the script will blow up if you try to pass invalid characters like spaces, semicolons or ampersands. Some punctuation is okay but I don't have the time to write an exhaustive list. A safe bet is to either only use this script on strings composed of letters and numbers or to build in your own string validation logic.


What's the point of the checker.bat?
Because variable refrencing in Windows Batch is so limited it is not ordinarily possible to use variables with the string substitution functions of the set command.

I can't do this -
set CHECK=%STRING:~-%count%%
Because the set command will not evaluate %count% before attempting to use it.

In order to get around this I dynamically construct a secondary batch (helper.bat) file using echo statements.
%temp%\checker.bat set CHECK=%%STRING:~-%count%%%
Because the echo command will resolve the variable "count" to the value it holds, the echoed statement is perfectly valid.

If "count" happened to equal 3 during the previous command, open up checker.bat and you'll see:
set CHECK=%STRING:~-3%
Since this is using an actual number rather than a variable, we're all set. Now all that's needed is to call checker.bat from your original script and the variable is set as desired.

It's a bit silly to have to go so far out of your way just to modify the input of a command, but at least it's possible.

Let me know if you found this helpful!

Wii

Over the weekend of November 17th to November 19th, I was able to acquire both of the most sought after consoles, the Wii and the PS3. Personally I consider it unfair to compare the two because the PS3 is such a powerful beast, and the Wii is so much more fun. You can go pretty much anywhere on the 'Net and find opinions about the two systems, and this blog is no exception! I will, however, attempt to provide information that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Due to a strange sequence of events, I actually acquired my PS3 later in the day on the same day I acquired my Wii. And since I'm an unapologetic Nintendo fanboy, I'm reviewing the Wii first.

Nintendo prefers for some reason that the system simply be called Wii and not "Nintendo Wii". I'm sure it figures into the rantings of some social engineering plot designed to cement the system into the hearts and minds of the world, but it also saves me typing so I'm going along with it.

While many people camped out 2-3 days to acquire a PS3, I camped out a day and a half to get a Wii - not because that was the only way, but because I wanted one on day-one. Bored to tears I walked into the Best Buy I had camped out in front of and bought a copy of Eragon. I nearly finished the book by the time the store opened the next day, but, dad-gummit, I was the first one in line and thus got first pick of some of the more hard-to-find accessories like controllers and nunchuck attachments. I also picked up Red Steel, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and Rayman: Raving Rabbids.

Out of the box -
System setup was pretty straightforward, but a bit more complicated than any previous Nintendo system owing to the requirements of the new controller. In order determine vertical alignment and triangulate distance from the screen, the system requires a slim infrared sensor bar to be mounted at the bottom of the screen or the top of it. This isn't very complicated to get accomplished correctly, however it makes moving the system from one TV to another more of a chore. I suppose if you count the fact that the controllers are all cordless now you might be able to call it even. Other than that, you have your power cord, and video cables and that's all there is to it. If you intend to use the Wii's online features (many of which are pending a future update) you will need to have a Wi-Fi capable router or access point as the Wii does not support wired Internet connections without the use of a special USB adapter (sold separately, only from Nintendo) The Wi-Fi setup is pretty straight forward. If you have ever set up a computer for Wi-Fi, everything should be more or less familiar. It supports all of the popular Wi-Fi security features like WEP and WPA. Mine was up and running in less than 10 minutes.

The Good -
The Wii remote - the center of your Wii world - is surprisingly simple in appearance but is in reality one of the most sophisticated human-computer interfaces commercially available. It utilizes two different types of wireless connectivity, has a multi-axis gyroscopic sensor that knows the exact orientation of the controller no matter how you tilt it, has a force feedback vibration function, a built in speaker, and a high-speed extension port that allows for a wide variety of possibilities for future expansions. In addition to its myriad features, it has an unexpectedly comfortable heft to it. Usage is very intuitive for simple things like menu navigation and with a little tweaking, could easily replace the PC mouse in a few years. For gameplay, there can be a bit more of a learning curve depending on how and how well the developer implemented it. Games like Rayman: Raving Rabbids were easy to just pick up and play, but Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz required a somewhat steeper learning curve. With practice, precision control is possible.

The Wii has a very small "footprint" (the amount of space it takes up on the surface on which it is placed) and should fit easily into just about any TV cabinet, shelf or entertainment center. The ventilation is all accomplished through the back panel of the unit (unlike the Gamecube where the fan vents were on the sides) Wii can easily be sandwiched between or underneath other devices without concern of overheating.

The Wii Sports tech demo included with the system is a very shallow but almost addictive diversion. The Wii operating software has a feature called Mii where you create little virtual characters, somewhat akin to a super-simplified version of the Sims or Animal Crossing. These characters can be sent to visit the Wii consoles of other friends connected to the Internet, and they are also the players in Wii Sports. Each Mii acquires his/her own scores and stats based on how well you perform at the various sporting events while using that Mii as the character. From what I've seen, Nintendo has future titles in the works to build on this feature.

The limited Internet communication is extremely restricted with the intention of keeping kids safe from Internet predators. Non-parent players will probably find it too restrictive as it requires that you first communicate with a person outside of the Wii network to exchange Wii console numbers. Without a Wii console number you cannot invite someone to be your friend, and unless the other person accepts your invitation you cannot communicate with him or her. The idea being that a child is literally unable to meet new people via the Wii interface. There are several fan-run websites that seek to alleviate this restriction by providing a place to meet other players and exchange the codes required to communicate via the Wii.

Zelda and Rayman are by far my favorite games so far. Rayman is stupid fun and makes innovative use of most of the new controller's capabilities. Zelda is as sweeping an epic that any fan could want. These games may not look like Oblivion or Gears of War in terms of polygon count, but they are every bit as much fun.

The system is, as far as I can tell, 100% backwards compatible with Gamecube. Two lids on the top of the Wii open up to reveal Gamecube controller and memory card ports.


The Bad

Along with all of the wonderful new features, there are a couple of annoyances I have encountered with Wii.

--Wii 24/7
This is Nintendo's "always-on" Internet-based service. The Wii will periodically "phone home" to check for system software updates, and your friends can come and visit your Wii to leave messages or Mii's even while you're not playing. Personally I would prefer to have a little more control over this feature. As it is, you have to completely disable Internet connectivity to get your Wii console to stop acting as if it has a mind of its own. It was a little creepy the first time the blue disc slot just came on in the middle of the night and stayed on for several hours. As none of my friends reported visiting at that time, and no software updates were available at the time, there was no explanation provided as to why the Wii had done that. What's more I found that my controller's battery was completely drained in the morning. (The controller part is possibly just a coincidence, but I could have sworn that the battery had at least half a charge left before night time.

--AA batteries only
The Wii remote runs on two AA batteries. With the other current generation systems, the Wireless controllers either have or can be fitted with rechargeable battery packs which can be recharged by plugging the controllers into the system. Given the immense flexibility of the Wii remote, I suppose such a feature is a possibility for the future, but for now you just have to keep changing the batteries. If you decide to use one of the rubber sleeves (I believe they are referred to as "gloves") on your Wii remote, it will have to be removed each time your replace the batteries. The gloves I have are tight enough that this operation is a royal pain.

--Composite Video
From the outset, Nintendo has downplayed the role of High Definition graphics in video games, choosing instead to focus on improved gameplay and improved overall player experience. And I'm all for innovation like that, but I still want the best picture quality possible. The Wii ships with composite video cables - probably the lowest quality signal available on most TVs these days. Composite represents the "just enough to get by" mentality, and that's fine that that is all that you get with the system, but Nintendo grossly underestimated the demand for higher-quality Component video cables needed to get ultra-clear 480p video from the system. What's worse, none of these highly-sought-after cables were sent to stores. The only place they were available was from Nintendo directly via their online store. I ordered my cables on the 16th of November and did not receive them until the 28th due to gross underestimation of demand. In the interim, these cables (which cost me $35 if you count shipping) were being scalped on Ebay for nearly $200 - and people appeared to be paying it! For smaller TVs the improvement provided by these cables will not be so evident, but with larger screens (about 30 inches and above) the difference can be night and day. They made a dramatic improvement on my 42". The supply problem appears to be fixed now, but it was very annoying in the beginning.

--Space
Although the Wii takes up very little space itself, some of the activities suggested by the games take up quite a bit more. Wii is definitely not small-room friendly, at least not for titles like Wii Sports that suggest a wide range of motion.

--Controller Volume
So far I have not found a way to mute or turn the volume down on the Wii remote, and let me tell you the sound effects in Zelda are LOUD. This would seriously hamper one's ability to play a game in the wee hours of the morning (no pun intended) without disturbing anyone sleeping within earshot.

The Ugly

--Wii Shop
The Wii Shop is Nintendo's vaunted "iTunes of Video Games" where players can go to purchase vintage games from numerous classic systems (both Nintendo and non-Nintendo systems) for download and play on the Wii console. It is one of the main selling points that Nintendo has been pushing since before any of us even knew what the Wii would look like or be named.

This feature has gone from being one of the things I was most looking forward to, to being the one I most resent and will likely never use.

When Nintendo first announced this service they (Satoru Iwata at both E3 and SpaceWorld) were adamant that first party titles would be provided free of charge. A year later when the service is actually available, first party software costs from $5 to $10 per game - not free and not even cheaper than third-party software. Nintendo welched on its promise and that stings a lot. I won't go as far as to say that this would have changed my decision about buying a Wii but it sure didn't help. I understand that they are in business to make money, but to make money, you have to have good relationships with your customers. Making promises with no intention of keeping them is not a good relationship builder.

Another big disappointment with the Wii Shop is that although the Wii games themselves have been officially declared region-free (meaning any Wii game from any country should play on any Wii system) the Wii Shop will be region locked to prevent players from downloading classic games available in other reigions. This dashes the hopes of many of us who were hoping some beloved and nearly forgotten titles would have an unprecedented second chance at U.S. distribution.

I have strong opinions about supporting download-based software distribution. Because of the security mechanisms required to satisfy anti-piracy paranoia the usability of such downloaded software is almost exclusively crippled in some way - either it can only be downloaded into internal memory and cannot be transferred to permanent storage (like CD-R or DVD-R) or it will only work with a specific machine, or for a specific amount of time. I consider such restrictions immoral as there are far too many scenarios outside of the customers' control under which they will end up paying something for nothing. Perhaps it is my collector's mentality, or my buy-it-now play-it-later attitude toward a lot of games that makes me see it that way. Or perhaps it is the fact that if such services ever become commonplace the entire video game retail industry will suffer a painful demise. No more EBGames, no more GameStop, no more Game Crazy - just poof gone. And with it any chance of service by gamers for gamers.

So, for now, despite my fanaticism for Nintendo, it is my firm hope that the Wii Shop and any other download-based distribution (like XBOX Live Arcade) fails utterly, and although this demise is largely out of my control, I refuse to contribute to the problem by allowing one red cent of my money to be applied to them.

Conclusion
At $250 a pop, the Wii is definitely a good value. Make sure you either have a big room or avoid games that are likely to require one. Rechargeable AA batteries are a must.

Merry Christmas, scratch that, Happy Jesus' Birthday!

A couple of years ago when the traditionalists and Christians were really starting to get miffed about the politically correct neutering of Christmas greetings, I decided to try a reverse-psychology approach with a friend of mine. Knowing that he was a Christian and not at all bashful about it, I approached him in mid-December and told him "Season's Holidays!". He fixed me with a flat stare and replied "Happy Jesus' Birthday." to rhyme with "Tonight you sleep with the fishes." That is one of my most cherished Christmas memories.

Well, there goes the Universe

It has become painfully obvious to me after playing a couple of hours of the long-awaited, much-anticipated Phantasy Star Universe, that the game is a big steamy turd.

I've been looking forward to this game for quite some time, but it seems like it has been one disappointment after another... I'm posting my impressions to see if anyone agrees with me. If you disagree with my reasons, please respond with articulate rebuttals or not all.

First Sega arbitrarily decides that we aren't allowed to play with players from other reigons. No chatting with Japanese friends for me, I guess... I suppose this isn't really a big deal for most people, so no one will care if I don't like it.

Next Sega decides not to allow the different platforms to play together. That's par for the course, I suppose, but I can't see the justification for it. They had an excuse with the various incarnations of PSO - the games were each developed in a vacuum. That is to say that when the DC PSO was created, the PC version was not part of that development process. Although the games were similar, they used different tables and addressing for the word select system, and had features that were not compatible between them. But all three versions of PSU were developed in tandem - there's really no excuse. Final Fantasy IX runs fine on all three of the same platforms as PSU and the players of FFXI are all able to play together regardless of platform. FFXI is even a more complex and robust game. There is no excuse for separating the platforms except possibly laziness. So now, in order to play with all of my friends, I had to purchase two separate copies of the game, and to pay two hunters fees. Maybe this was Sega's big plan to cash in at my expense? It sure feels like it.

And while I'm on the subject of gouging, why is it that Sega is using a separate licensing system for the XBOX 360? Contrary to various rumors that have been flying around, and I guess even posted by Sega themselves, the 360 version not only requires XBOX Live! Gold membership (~$50/yr) but also requires the same full price license fee ($9.99/mo)? (I'm not guessing at this, I've actually tried to use Silver and seen the fee on Live Marketplace). Maybe that's not a big deal for people who already pay for Gold membership for other reasons, but I don't have any other reason to get a Gold membership, and for me that's a complete ripoff. Again, I'm going to dredge up Final Fantasy XI for comparison. FFXI players can not only use the free XBOX Live! Silver membership, but any Content ID (Square-Enix's equivalent to a Guardian License) will work equally well on any of the three platforms. That means that I can pay one monthly fee to play on any of the three platforms. Sega, you're ripping me off either way. I mean, if I'm playing on Microsoft's servers, I shouldn't be paying Sega to play on them, and if I'm playing on Sega's servers, I shouldn't be paying Microsoft for it - simple as that.

My next gripe is the fact that this game isn't even finished yet. We're paying to beta-test Sega's software. Opinion you say? Look in the official Brady Games strategy guide at the number of items are listed as "in a future update". It is painfully obvious that Sega pushed this out the door before it was ready with the intention of fixing their obvious mistakes with patches later. The XBOX and PC have a facility for handling this (not that that makes it right) but how are they going to fix the PS2 version?

Speaking of fixes - slowdown? Sega has produced slowdown on the 360? Do you know how massively powerful the 360 is? How do you get slowdown (frequent) with three or four moving characters onscreen...on the XBOX 360? Have you seen Ninety-Nine Nights? Do you realize how massively obvious your sloppiness is Sega?

I just can't believe how completely I've been let down by this game. I can't imagine that the player community will embrace it like they did PSO. Not only does Sega have a lot more competition than it did back then, but PSO was a better game. I'm not just saying that it was a better game for its time, I'm saying it is a better game period. For one thing it was finished, for another the pricing scheme was fair for what was provided ( the game servers were little more than a proxy that hosted the lobbies and connected peers together when they created a room). Most of my friends from FFXI and PSO have already expressed similar dissatisfaction, so I know I'm not alone in this.

As if all that wasn't enough, I even had trouble signing up for this forum because of poorly thought-out design.

Due to a number of logistical reasons I can think of off the top of my head, I highly doubt Sega will do the right thing and recall this game and not release it until it's finished, but I can still ask for it. Who knows, if enough of the fans speak out, it might happen.

The bottom line is that if the game was any fun at all, I would be playing it right now instead of making this post. Sega doesn't even get a nice try on this one. Bad form.

Is XBOX 360 the Dreamcast of the Next Generation?

It's almost frightening how may parallels there are between the XBOX360 vs. PS3 battle and the Dreamcast vs. PS2 battle.

Consider the following

RELEASE

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Dreamcast is released a full year before the PS2. Sony steals some of Dreamcast's thunder by releasing detailed specs for the PS2 days before the Dreamcast's 9/9/99 launch, thereby making the PS2 a little more real in the customers' eyes and causing some consumers to decide to wait for the spec-superior hardware.

360 vs. PS3: 360 is released a full year before PS3. Sony starts its thunder stealing in May by releasing detailed quasi-final specs on the PS3 to coincide with when stores start taking 360 preorders. Many consumers vow to wait for the PS3, confused at the 6 vs. 18 month difference.

BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Sony vows PS2 fully backwards compatible with PS1. Dreamcast is not backwards compatible with Saturn or Sega CD. In practice this is a minor issue as most people will want to see new graphics on their new system and are unlikely to use the feature extensively, however Sony spins this into a major selling point. Bleem company has vowed to make emulation software that will allow the Dreamcast to play the entire library of PS1 titles on Dreamcast thereby eliminating Sony's advantage. In the end technical limitations reduced Bleem's success to a handful of PS1 games playing on Dreamcast, and the Sony legal machine abused its massive budget to starve the fledgling Bleem out of business before the technical issues could be resolved. End result, PS2: almost fully backwards compatible with previous generation, Dreamcast: sort of backwards compatible with the previous generation.

360 vs. PS3: Microsoft flip-flops on backwards compatibility for 360 first we're getting full compatibility, then we're getting partial, then nobody knows. Sony vows PS3 fully compatible with PS2 and PS1. The 360 hardware is completely different from XBOX so emulation software has to be written for each individual game. Games like Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue II, and X-Men Legends aren't compatible, but Halo and Barbie Horse Racing are. It all depends on whether or not anyone takes an interest in writing the emulation software, and also on how difficult such a project becomes. Sony takes Microsoft to task over this, once again turning this into a selling point for the PS3. (Sony will most likely implement its backward compatibility by including the processors from the PS2 and PS1 in the PS3 hardware.) End result, PS3: almost fully backwards compatible with previous generation, 360: sort of backwards compatible with the previous generation.

FORMAT

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Dreamcast was released prior to DVD becoming a mass-market product. Most DVD players cost more than $500 and only a handful of titles are available. Due to the increased expense in both hardware and licensing fees, Dreamcast ships with a proprietary CD drive with enhancements for reading a special 1GB disc format that Sega dubbs GD-ROM. In keeping with the previous generation (Saturn, PS1, 3DO, Jaguar CD, CD-i) The only mass market media that Dreamcast plays is Audio CD (Red Book). Part of Sony's motivation for waiting a year longer than Sega to release PS2 is to incorporate a DVD drive into the system. Not only does this afford the system a massive 9GB canvas for games, but at $299, it makes the PS2 one of the more affordable DVD players on the market, while at the same time boosting the DVD format itself as millions of gamers now have a DVD player built-in. The PS2, of course, also plays Audio CD. Sega vows to level this playing field by offering an add-on DVD drive for the Dreamcast. (They will not be able to offer a Dreamcast with a built-in DVD drive without alienating their original customers, and even if they did so, they could not use the format to enhance games as that would force publishers to split their product lines or limit their market potential.) But ultimately it was too little, too late. The viability of such a device diminshed as the prices for standalone DVD drives declined and the logistics of an addon drive were the least of Sega's worries as Sony remorselessly crushed its hardware business as a whole.

360 vs. PS3: In keeping with the functionality of the previous generation of hardware, the 360 sports a standard DVD-ROM drive with a maximum disc capacity around 9GB. Due to increased interest in anti-copy technology, the formats and playback schemes for the next-generation disc formats were not finalized as of the time that the 360 was released. Sony, however has played the waiting game once again to incorporate a Blu-ray Disc drive in the PS3, in hopes of duplicating its success. The Blu-ray format affords PS3 a theoretical 200GB-per-disc canvas (although 50GB is more realistic). As of this writing there are only two Blu-ray video players available on the market, both of which cost around $1000. At $600, the PS3 will appear to be a cheap alternative to a stand-alone player, and Sony is banking on the PS3 to simultaneously boost the Blu-ray format by installing a Blu-ray movie player in the homes of millions of gamers. Microsoft has vowed to even this playing field with an add-on HD-DVD drive - another high-capacity format in direct competition with Blu-ray. Microsoft will not be able to offer a 360 with a built-in HD-DVD drive without alienating its original customers, and even if it does so, it cannot use such a drive to enhance games without forcing publishers to either split their product lines or limit their market potential to one or the other. Technical limitations between the 360 and the HD-DVD format (the 360 does not have an HDCP compliant video output and this may be required by some HD-DVD movies to show full resolution) are threatening to limit the performance potential of such an add-on drive. Couple this with the logistics of trying to sell such a peripheral and the fact that no solid details have been released after over 6 months of speculation and this add-on is starting to look like vaporware. As of this writing neither the add-on drive for the 360 nor the PS3 have been released yet, however the lines are already drawn.

PRICING

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Dreamcast - $199, PS2 - $299. Difference - PS2 is $100 more.

360 vs. PS3: 360 - $299(stripped-down)/$399(complete), PS3 - $499(stripped-down)/$599(complete). Difference - PS3 is $100 - $300 more.

COSMETICS

Dreamcast vs. PS2: The standard Dreamcast is white with a white controller. The controllers used the colors red, green, yellow, and blue for its buttons which were labeled A, B, X, and Y. The standard PS2 is black with a black controller. The buttons are black with colored markings. The colors are green, pink, red and periwinkle, labeled (square), (triangle) (circle) and X.

360 vs. PS3: The 360 is white with a white controller. The controllers used the colors red, green, yellow, and blue for its buttons which were labeled A, B, X, and Y. The most recent prototypes of the PS3 are shown to be black with a black controller. The buttons are black with colored markings. The colors are green, pink, red and periwinkle, labeled (square), (triangle) (circle) and X.

OPERATING SYSTEM

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Dreamcast used Windows CE as its OS. PS2 used a proprietary Sony OS.

360 vs. PS3: 360 uses a heavily modified version of Windows 2000 as its OS. The PS3 OS has not been fully divulged but is clearly proprietary to Sony.

PHILOSOPHY

Dreamcast vs. PS2: Dreamcast was a system designed based on gamer feedback, made by gamers for gamers. It featured a very long controller cord, and four ports for multi-player gaming. It seems clear that the aim of Sega with the Dreamcast was to provide a system that was easy to develop for, and would have beautiful games. Many developers went on record praising Sega for making a system that was such a joy to develop for. The PS2 was designed by Sony with little customer interaction, there was little or no innovation included in PS2 aside from beefier hardware. The aim of the PS2 seemed to be squeezing the most profit possible out of the consumer rather than to make it easy to develop for or have beautiful games. This is evidenced by the fact that the system is notoriously difficult to develop for, that games released on both systems looked better on the Dreamcast than their PS2 counterparts, and the seemingly endless stream of mediocre or downright worthless games that Sony points to as a strength by way of diversity.

360 vs. PS3: This battle has not yet begun in earnest, however the lines have been drawn. In addition to nearly a year of customer surveys and customer focus groups, nearly every feature of the 360 was designed around the desires of the gamers who would be playing it. The 360 has been described as a joy to work with by many developers because the OS is very similar to the original XBOX (even if the hardware is drastically different) and they are required to re-learn less. Several games on 360 have been gorgeous. With the XBOX, Microsoft sought to distance itself from the PC game world - particularly some of the stigmas associated with it (PC game publishers are notorious for releasing unfinished software with the intention of finishing it via patches later on, but these patches only get made if the game is commercially successful, so there are many PC games that remain forever deeply flawed.) Although many of the best games on 360 are PC ports, they still seem to be maintaining their insistence on quality that console games have come to expect. Sony on the other hand is taking their quest for a deluge of mediocre gaming that they can point to and say "we have something for everyone" to the next level by actually describing the PS3 as a PC. The accuracy of the statement itself is irrelevant, it is the implied connotation of the statement that Sony wants to make the console gaming industry more like the PC gaming industry that is so revealing. Just as with the PS1-PS2 generation hop, the only real innovation with the PS3 over the PS2 is beefier hardware, these systems are largely identical in terms of player interaction.

CONCLUSION

Although some of these comparisons, such as the cosmetic ones, may seem frivilous, there is still something to be said for the eerie conclusion that they all culminate to. Has Microsoft done more with their year head start on Sony than Sega did last generation? Is XBOX Live the PSO of this generation? In 5 years will there even be an XBOX Live? Or will it do its stint in the limelight and fade into obscurity? Will Sony succeed again in misdirecting customers by dangling Metal Gear Solid 4 in front of them just like they did with Metal Gear Solid 2, when the game will not be available for years after PS3? Does Sony have anything other than new Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy titles to draw customers in? Honestly there are only a couple of PS3 launch games I might even care to play, and none that I'm actually excited about. Warhawk? Isn't that a remake of a PS1 game? You'd think if it had any potential it would have already had a sequel by now - but perhaps not. As far as game prospects, the Nintendo Wii has already blown its competition out of the water with new Zelda, Mario, Smash Bros, Metroid, Sonic and Final Fantasy titles, but at least the 360 had some great stuff lined up for launch (even if Oblivion was only a feint - at least I didn't have to wait a full 2 years after launch to play it). Will the promise of games like Gears of War, Mass Effect and Halo 3 keep gamers faithful to the 360, or will brand loyalty, Blu-ray playback, and backwards compatibility win the day again?
Microsoft had better just hope that history doesn't repeat itself.

My PayPal Rant

I signed up for PayPal several years ago when it was a fairly new business - way before it was acquired by Ebay. For those of you unaware of this service, PayPal is sort of an online escrow service that mediates payments between buyers and sellers. It's super convienent for paying for auctions to private individuals because you can pay them with a credit card and they don't have to have any special equipment or service accounts with the credit card companies to accept payment.

PayPal sets a cumulative spending limit on its customers. You can only spend so much (I think it was something like $2000) unless you give them bank account information to "confirm" your account. At the time, I didn't think much of this. I guessed that maybe it was more difficult to open a false checking account than it was to get a false credit card?

It wasn't until about a year later when Ebay auctions began to show the "Pay Now" tag that convienently lets you go right from your auction to your PayPal account that I figured out what was going on. Each and every time you go to make a payment, PayPal tries to do a direct bank withdrawal. No matter how you set your account preferences, they always set it back. You can, of course use their "other funding sources" option to change where that particular payment is taken from, however, the very next time you go to make a payment they try it again.

Now, PayPal claims that I should prefer this method of payment because I'm insured for a greater amount of money, and that it's somehow more secure - or at least so says the interrum confirmation page that tries to discourage me from using a credit card as a funding source each and every time I switch the payment method.

A quick look at your bank statement after one of these "direct transfer" bank withdrawals will show what's really going on. PayPal hawks their service as a way to make convienent online payments with your credit card - that's their description of the service, but they don't like to do this because like any other vendor they have to pay the card company for the transaction fee. But with a bank withdrawal, its the customer that gets stuck with the fee.

I confronted them about this, advising that I would never want to pay this way, and that I would like my account to stop setting that as the default payment method because the only way I would ever use it was if I was tricked into doing so. (Which is exactly what this "default" setting is intended to do, I'm sure.)

Their reply was to tell me that I should switch the funding option manually every single time I use their service and if I didn't like that answer, I should call their non-toll free number. Luckily I actually live close enough to PayPal's office that I don't have to pay for the call, but it is pretty obvious that this is only a pretense of recourse. Of course, although the webform I created resulted in an email response, when I attempted to respond directly to the email, they explained that they ignore email responses. I wonder why....

In short, I'll be shopping around for a more honest alternative to PayPal. I can't stand it when companies lie to me.

PS3: The ultimate culmination of Sony's arrogance

Make no mistake, on November 17th I'll be plunking down $600 for one of these monstrosities, but that's because I'm a technology addict. I'm not going to be recommending this purchase to any of my friends.

Sony's arrogance has reached unbelievable proportions.
They attempt to hawk UMD movies which often cost more than the same movie on DVD and are less useful as they have lower resolution and can only be played on a PSP. Despite the fact that most retailers won't even carry the poor-selling movies, they still declare the format a success.

They are poised to do the same thing with Blu-Ray as with UMD. The only reason we have a Blu-Ray format is because Sony refused to defer to the judgment of the larger consortium of manufacturers and studios who chose HD-DVD instead.

They have set an obscene price point for the PS3, and have attempted to justify it by comparing PS3 to a meal at a fine resturant vs the competition which is fast.

They seem to have designed the shape of the PS3 solely for the purpose of making it difficult to put things on top of it. It's basically a PS2 with a curved top.

Sony's arrogance has been legendary since the phenominal success it started enjoying about mid-way through the first Playstation's life cycle. And I can't say I blame them. They jumped into a market as a relative newcommer and gradually overcame the encumbents. Other than the poorly supported N64 and mismanaged Saturn, the Playstation also had to contend with rookie systems 3DO, CD-I, Jaguar and (Japan Only) PC-FX. When that generation started everyone wondered whether Nintendo or Sega would reign supreme, but when the dust settled the Playstation was clearly the winner. Possibly the least powerful of the contending systems, Sony owed its success to a juggernaut marketing campaign, low production costs leading to stronger thrid party support and a slue of must-have exclusive titles. There wasn't anything remarkable about the Playstation it was just managed very well.

Building on this success Sony proclaimed itself the master-race of console gaming. In what was clearly intended sabotage Sony chose to release Playstation 2 specs and release information the week before the Dreamcast's launch. Their intention was, of course, to dangle the imminent PS2 in front of next-gen happy gamers. It is practically unheard of in the game industry to make announcements like that in September. Most announcements of that nature are reserved for trade shows such as TGS, or E3.

As promised, the PS2 was released in 2000 and quickly sold out due mostly to hype - the launch lineup was pathetic. Most gamers bought it with the promise of upgraded sequels like Tekken 4, Gran Turismo 2000, and Metal Gear Solid 2. When actual release date came Tekken 4 was the only one to make an appearence. Metal Gear Solid 2 took an excruciating two years to be released and was a massive disappointment to most fans. Gran Turismo 2000 never actually materialized, though arguably the game originally shown as GT2000 could be considered the prototype for Gran Turismo 3 released in 2004 - four years after the PS2 launch. Perhaps one of the biggest selling points of the PS2 was its backwards compatibility with old Playstation games and the fact that it doubled as a DVD player. At the time DVD players ranged from around $200-$600. The backward compatibility gave gamers something to do with their new toy, and the DVD playback sold quite a few units by itself.

PS2 crushed the floundering Dreamcast. Dreamcast couldn't play DVDs or Saturn games, and was dogged by the bad retailer relations caused by the untimely demise of Saturn. And from about a week after launch, a steady stream of mediocre PS2 games began their march onto store shelves. Sony's lax quality control ensured that they could pump more boxes of crap to retailers than anybody else. Although 95% of the games released for the PS2 are not worth the electricity that it takes to run them, Sony proudly points to their enormous library of games and says "we have something for everyone".

The year head start that Sony enjoyed allowed them to stonewall the Gamecube and newcomer XBOX and prevent either from threatening their staggering market share. Again, Sony held its competition at bay with far inferior hardware by a relentless advertising campaign and a willingness to publish any crappy piece of software that doesn't lock the console up.

I think they've finally stepped over the line with this latest string of arrogance, and I hope they get wiped out.

Transformers The Movie teaser trailer

www.transformerslive.com has become www.transformersmovie.com and they have posted a new teaser trailer dubbed an "exclusive announcement".

It has been roughly a year since the movie was officially announced, and it looks like production is well on schedule. Some cast announcements have been made and it looks like they've respectfully reworked the Transformers logo, making some cosmetic changes over the original 1985 logo, but leaving it mostly intact. That gives me hope that this movie will be based more heavily on the original Transformers characters rather than one of the dozen other series' that have followed in its steps.

Some things are almost a given - there practically has to be an Optimus Prime and a Megatron - very few Transformers series' have existed without at least some version of those two.

My wishlist for this movie:

• Peter Cullen and Frank Welker doing the voices again.
• Bumblebee
• Soundwave as a stereo

It's probably too much to ask, but I can always hope.

Racoons, Poison Ivy and the Fourth

My Fourth of July weekend was probably the most eventful one I've ever had and I didn't even get to see any fireworks (other than on television).

My Fourth of July weekend actually started a week and a half ago when I spent the night stalking a racoon that has been eating my father-in-law's chickens. I had the little varmant in my sights but I couldn't make a positive ID and didn't want to shoot one of their cats by mistake. I didn't take the shot and I've been kicking myself ever since. I went home and showered immediately, and even so I still came away with about four spots of poison ivy. No big deal really, just a minor annoyance.

Flash forward a week. I decided to go back for a second round of stalking the racoon. I spent a few fruitless hours in the dark waiting for him to show up, but this time I wisely didn't go into the tall grass or brush so there was no way I could have come in contact with more poison ivy. Or so I thought...

My wife picks strange things to be a conservationist about, and washing clothes is one of them. She practically refuses to wash clothing that I have worn for less than a full day, and often less than two full days. If there isn't any visible dirt and there are no offending odors, it goes right back into circulation. That way the clothes wear out more slowly, we don't spend as much soap and water on them, and she has to spend less time doing laundry. And if I'm doing something dirty like working on my cars or stalking racoons, it doesn't matter how dirty they are.

At the time, I was blissfully unaware of the true nature of the poision ivy plant. You see the poison in a poison ivy plant is not the needles themselves, rather an oil that the plant produces and distributes via its needles. This oil stays potent for a very very long time. Wash it off with a good soap before it has a chance to be fully absorbed by your skin, and you may never even feel its effects. But put on a pair of pants that have had the oil on them for the better part of a week getting worked in and through and well....you can probably guess where this is going.

I waited until the next morning to shower and by then it was too late. A day later I had poison ivy in places that I will not mention because the fact that I will not mention them tells you exactly where they are.

It was so bad that I have been unable to wear proper clothes for days, I have not had a good night's sleep in four days and I missed out on seeing fireworks because I would have had to wear said clothes and would not be able to apply calomine lotion in a timely fashion.

I suppose the racoon has won this round, but the war is far from over...

AOL's new motto: you will be assimilated, resistance is futile

http://www.nbc10.com/news/9406462/detail.html

The worst part of this is that they fired the poor guy whom they probably pressured into doing exactly what he did in the first place. "Absolutely don't let them cancel the account" they said, and provided him with weeks of training on possible rebuttals to even the most stubborn of cancel-happy customers. And then he gets caught on tape doing exactly what they tell him to and he gets fired to protect AOL's image. (AOL: you aren't fooling anyone)

I remember cancelling an AOL account once - and no, I wasn't stupid enough to sign up for AOL in the first place. I bought a Gateway computer back when they came with "A year of free Internet" through an MCI/Worldcom account going under the guise of "gateway.net". When Worldcom started faltering, I guess their deal with Gateway fell through and the "gateway.net" service evaporated, but Gateway still owed me three months of "free Internet". So they benevolently set me up with an AOL account without asking my permission. As soon as I realized that they had sent my particulars to the borg of all ISPs I immediately called to cancel the account. Fortunately for me I wasn't as nice as the guy in this clip - I told them flat out that I absolutely despised AOL and that I would abstain from using the Internet entirely if they were my only route to it - that way I only got 2 rebuttal attempts instead of a dozen. The worst part is that I'm STILL on their mailing list.

This week I learned...

…Fox News after midnight repeats the same crap so often it's worse than being forced to count the Coke Logo's for the 43rd time while you wait for your movie to start.

...the Google "current" channel is comprised of the trifecta of softcore porn affectionately labeled "National Geographic-type nudity", newslike segments singing the praises of group sex, and animated cartoons so offensive that they make Southpark look like the Care Bears.

...how to perform maintenance on a Compaq 1850-R server using a letter opener, my fingernails and a pocket knife.

...someone has developed (I am not making this up) a urinal that functions as a video game controller.

...Reggie Fils-Aime is not only a member of Nintendo of America, he's also the president. (Well he is now, anyway.)

...No one really knows what the new 2007 Camaro will look like.

...That it's okay to delete the contents of /var/tmp/portage and /tmp.

...That Microsoft almost bought Ebay.

...Not to always listen to what the Haynes repair manual tells you - especially if the guy at the parts store tells you otherwise.

Movies!

I saw two movies this weekend, but I'm only writing a review for one of them. A local theater specializes in obscure and older movies and was playing the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That was the most fun I've had at a movie since the Lord of the Rings trilogy night. 99% of the audience already knew the movie forwards and backwards, there was cheering and shouts of "We love you Master Splinter!" Someone started humming Darth Vader's theme music when Shredder made his dramatic entrance, and Chief Sterns was immediately compared to Chief Wiggam from the Simpsons - half of the audience shouted a nasally "Nyaa" every time he was on screen. It's a classic that still holds its own - which is more than I can say for its sequels.

But on to the other movie I saw: The Davinci Code
This movie was somewhat of a disappointment in numerous respects. On several occasions, people have recommended the book to me, but I never got around to reading it. After the awful Omega Code movie I was leery of anything that involved both the Bible and secret codes. I warn you now, this review is pretty much entirely a spoiler - normally I would hold back for the sake of those who might want to see this movie, but in my opinion, no one should need to waste their time in such a way. The story, according to the author's laughable re-write of history is basically this:
Jesus married Mary Magdelene and fathered children - this somehow indicates that he was not God's son, but just a really charasmatic mortal. The holy grail is not actually a cup, but a symbolic reference for Mary Magdelene herself - the cup (her womb) didn't catch Jesus' blood, it caught his blood-line. In 300 or so AD, Constantine - a consumate pagan until his death, organized a rally of "Christian" scolars to sit down and have a rap session to hammer out the details of this new ficticious Christianity religion thing. At that point they were sterilizing the gospels of anything that would make Jesus look like a mortal, and throwing out the gospels they couldn't clean up (including one written by Mary Magdelene herself! lol). After this, they covered their tracks and just went on pretending that Christianity had always been that way. But the catholic church had to erase Jesus' heirs from history, because somehow all of their power and influence was based on the premise that Jesus was immortal and somehow having children makes him mortal. The Knighs Templar was apparently a secret society with the hidden agenda of protecting Jesus' living descendants against the extremist Catholics (that's practically a contradiction in terms.) So flash forward a couple of thousand years, and the battle of Templar vs. Catholic rages on. Caught up in this are Robert - a symbologist that specializes in obscure interpretations of common symbols and Sophie - a cop, and the unknowing descendant of Jesus. The movie unfolds somewhat like National Treasure as one clue is followed to the next, however it was not nearly as intriguing or mysterious. The obviousness of the plot killed most of the suspense for me - I was able to guess what was going to happen next with accuracy that surprised even me. Even the double-crosses were badly botched. There was one sequence in particular that made me laugh out loud at is ineptitude. The butler that just double-crossed the heroes has a conversation with a man who is purposly obscured from the camera and does not speak - the butler even makes reference to the fact that his identiy is supposed to be a secret - the exposition couldn't have been more obvious if the actor had faced the audience directly and spoke. Now, it was pretty obvious to me who the mystery man was just by deductive reasoning, but the scene switches to something that is pretty much unrelated for a few minutes then jumps back and the mystery man's identity is revealed. It was a complete waste of intrigue. When you use intrigue on an audience, you have to give them a reason to want to know the secret. This was just bad film making. Anyway, our heroes jet-set across europe and at the end discover that Sophie is one of the last living descendants of Jesus (they use Christ like it was his last name, lol). According to the author, revealing this fact to the world will utterly destroy the catholic church, which is, evidently, the sole source of racisism, classism, oppression, hunger, war, the author's bad childhood, and pretty much everything in the general category of evil. So now Sophie has to make the decision to go public, she makes a cutesy little visual gag where she tries to walk on water and then says she's going to go try the water and wine trick. As an epilogue, Robert follows the exact same clues that led him elsewhere earlier in the story, but this time they lead him to a pyramid inside the police station where the remains of Mary Magdelene a.k.a. the holy grail are now enterred. He kneels respectfully to pray to the corpse.

Firstly the core of the underlying story - that Jesus married Mary Magdelene and fathered children is a very old, very un-biblical theme. There has never been any evidence to support it, nor much of an effort to directly disprove it because it's absurd. The idea that this, if true, necessitates that Jesus was mortal is a stretch for even the most atheistic philosopher. The author clearly needed this to be true in order to construct the antagonist's (the Catholic Church) motivation, however it is also clearly motivated by some personal vendetta the writer has - there is no logic behind it. The un-biblical part of this was explained away by the council called by Constantine to sit down and do an ISO-ish re-write of the Christianity standard. For the rest of this review, I'll call it ISO 001.1. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the Catholic Church. I think the Catholic Church has done more harm to Christianity than any other person, entity, or assembly that has ever existed - their doctrine is largely fabricated by men with secular motivations, they openly contradict the Bible in public favoring idol worship and papal dispensation over the scripture. I'm personally sick and tired of Catholicism being regarded as the authoritative organization in Christianity. As far as I'm concerned, they ceased being Christian as soon as they began referring to priests as "father." They have even gone so far as offering to sell passage into heaven for money all in the name of Christianity. It is not difficult to understand why people like Dan Brown (the author) would become resentful and vindictive, or why so many would flock to believe what he says when this bastion of Christianity is so clearly full of deceit. And again, I want to clear up that I am not defending Dan Brown, merely attempting to lay open his motivations in order to explain why this movie was so bad.

Story-wise, it was poorly paced, badly conceived and executed. The plot was basically a badly performed and less interesting version of National Treasure. It is obvious that the director was counting on the noterity of the name to sell tickets, and not any inherent quality of the movie. Many of the characters had a 3D introduction followed by a distinctly 2D role. I've seen a lot of book-to-movie adaptations and they usually do a much better job with this - either the charcater is shallow and mostly unimportant or he is part of the main plot, not a little of both.

Special effects were basically confined to ghostly overlays as Robert explained or thought through something - his imaginations would appear on screen as translucent objects. Some of the camera work was very good, proving sweeping and often interesting views of the exotic backdrops.

Tom Hanks' acting was somewhat below par on this one. It seemed like he was trying to stretch the boundaries of his repitore and he ended up looking a little rough around the edges in terms of delivering a believable performance. Ian McKellen on the other hand, was on top of his game. Jean Reno also gave a very good performance, for what the director allowed him to do.

Philosophically this film is complete and utter heretical and blasphemous crap. It is obvious that the author is a bitter ex-member of catholicism and this was born of some personal vendetta.

I would recommend against wasting time or money on this.

My Video Game Archive Project: Finished!

It's been six days with nowhere to sit down in my house. My feet are still sore from standing up for 10 hours at a stretch. I've gone through 16 AA batteries to take nearly 1200 pictures. My dog and cat probably want to kill me for completely disrupting the order of my household. Thankfully my wife was just as excited to see just how much video game crap I have accumulated over the last 11 years as I was.

I had no earthly idea how large and time-consuming that this project would become when I first decided to do it last week. But it sure feels good to get it done. Here are a couple of highlights of my collection.

My complete collection of Working Designs games:

My Final Fantasy VII Launch T-Shirt:

My PS2 Linux Kit:

My Grandia Cloth Map:

I'm writing a database to archive my collection in OpenOffice.org Base, but for a little instant gratification, I put up a simple php gallery viewable here: Paladin's Game Collection

It's not on the fastest server in the world, so please be patient while the images load.

My Video Game Archive Project

I saw a contest over at luv2game.com where users were encouraged to post pictures of their game collections. I saw one or two of impressive size, but I found myself thinking "that's pretty big, but mine's bigger." I've been collecting games since around 1995. I actually got my first game system back in 1989 but for reasons I won't get into, I started at basically 0 in 1995. I've been amassing this collection for some time, but I realized that I had never actually seen it in one place at one time, so I had this brilliant idea - my wife and I would create a visual archive of the collection.

Three days into the project, I realize that it was much easier said than done. I have stashes all over the house, intertwined with Pokemon and Transformer collections. My back is sore, I've lost sleep three nights in a row; man this is hard work!

Here is the state that my theater room finds itself in:

Mission Impoissible III

With all of the recent publicity Tom Cruise has been getting over his choice of fiancees and his aggressive pursuit of the futuristic Scientology religion, I thought it would be hard to separate Tom Cruise from the role he plays as Ethan Hunt. But once the action started...Tom Who?

Gone is the stylized ultra-slick Metallica rendition of the Mission Impossible theme from MI:II, Ethan Hunt's cavalier attitudes about women, and motorcycle kung-fu. I couldn't help but be reminded of Lethal Weapon 4's approach to a maturing franchise, as the story opens with Ethan trying to finally settle down and start a family, taking a back seat at the IMF as a trainer. And of course, this is not to last.

This movie really packs a lot of punch, bombarding you with intense action scenes as well as gut-wrenching drama. You'll hate the bad guys and cheer the good guys - provided you can figure out who is who. As any fan of the series should expect, it's filled with plot twists and false clues to keep you guessing about the end. The tech takes a back seat in this movie - no more scenes with their own special version of "M" (ala James Bond) giving an inventory of all of their little toys. They seem to realize that the audiences today aren't fascinated by futuristic gadgetry the way they were in the last four decades. The tech is there and it works, and that's all anyone ever need know. I can only see this as a good thing, because, although I really like knowing the particulars of a clever piece of technology, I don't need a break in the action to learn about it. That's what websites, comentary tracks and DVD extras are for. The action sequences, while still mindblowing, were not as "impossible" as those in the previous movies. There are no half-inch-short-helicopter-blade-to-the-throat run-ins, no motorcycle kung-fu. The action was all believable, and that made it somewhat more fantastic. In my opinion, this was the best of the three movies in terms of action, drama, character development, suspense and story.

It is not without its cheesy moments; I had to laugh at the not one but several times Ethan found himself dangling horizontally on the end of a string, mimicking one of the most well-known scenes from the first movie. The ability of a script-writer and/or a director to allow the movie to sort of make fun of itself goes a long way toward instilling a sense of matured confidence on the audience.

After his run-in with South Park and the tabloids, it's difficult to know what to think of Tom Cruise these days, but I will say that I'd like him a lot more if he'd stick to his job and act, because he's extremely good at it.

Silent Hill

A little more than seven years ago when the first Silent Hill game was released for the Playstation, curiosity and hype drove me to to rent it. As a rule, I don't generally go in for "survival horror" games. Resident Evil had failed to capture my interest in all but the most technical aspects.

I remember being told by magazine reviewers that this game was extremely frightening and unnerving at times, but I didn't really believe it until I sat down and started playing it. The first 10 minutes of the game were some of the most mortifying that I have ever spent with a controller in my hand. The developers of this game really knew how to get under your skin and keep you jumping at shadows.

I finished Silent Hill in one night - eager to bring the whole thing to some sort of closure so I could sleep a little easier. I have never picked up any of the Silent Hill sequels, but if they're anything like the first one, I'm sure they're intimately frightening.

When I saw the trailer for the Silent Hill movie for the first time last year, I identified it instantly from the foggy atmosphere and the abandoned car on the mountainous highway.

As with any game-to-movie review, I feel obliged to mention all of the awful game-become-movies that have proceeded it like Super Mario Bros. movie, the Street Fighter movie, to tell you how much better this one is by comparison blah blah blah. Instead, however I'm using this as an opportunity to bag on the horribly awful pseudo-director Uwe Boll. Any film he touches usually ends up being crap because he has a deeply rooted fundamental misunderstanding of what video games are all about, and seems to have read the Cliffs Notes of film making instead of employing any actual talent. Thankfully he had nothing to do with Silent Hill, and it shows in the fact that it's actually a good movie.

Firstly I would recommend against anyone under the age of 17 seeing this film, and even then, don't go see it alone.

The Silent Hill movie only deviated from the story of the game in minor respects, and then it was obviously because of the time limitation. Even so it weighed in at just over 2 hours. It's a little slow to get started, but when it does, you're thrust into a confusing and horrifying tour of the ghost town Silent Hill.

The special effects were top-notch but never became the focus of the film. It seems that Hollywood is learning that special effects are supposed to help the movie not be the movie. Filled with visceral imagry, gore and unnervingly remorseless bad guys, no horror fan should be disappointed. Some of the sequences seem to employ the same techniques as recent Japanese horror films like Ringu and Juon, where the undead are made to move in ways that your brain tells you on some subconscious level just isn't right. This unsettling effect is coupled with unabashed carnage for a well-rounded scare. To top it all off there is an underlying tale of secret sin, retribution and a very confused commentary on the nature of good and evil.

A couple of aspects that detracted from my enjoyment were the fact that all of the principal characters in the movie were female. I suppose it's my male-centric mind making something out of nothing, after all there are plenty examples of movies where all of the principal characters are male, and they don't even make me bat an eye. It just seems odd to me.

I was delighted, however that the filmmakers resisted the urge to include sexuality in this story. The main supporting character is a busty blond policewoman with with a buzz cut that just screams out that she's as buch as a lumberjack, but this was all window dressing as far as the story went.

The story attempts to tell a morality tale from a decidedly secular point of view. When agnostics start getting preachy, it's hard not to laugh as they make comically flawed moral judgements based on absolutely nothing. One line in particular still makes me laugh when I think about it "Your faith leads to death." the main character says to the crazed psychopathic cult/church leader. It is clearly intended to be a profound and powerful revelation, and indeed the cult leader responds as such as though she is momentarily shaken by the statement. Any person with actual faith understands this as a fundamental tenet of faith. Any true faith can lead to death - the nature of faith requires the possibility. For Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Catholics, the story of Abraham and Issac is probably the best example of this. As I often say, writers shouldn't write stories about things that they clearly do not understand because they generally just end up looking stupid to anyone who does understand the subject. I expect the vast majority of people who go to see this movie will pass by that dialogue without much notice, or may even find it as profound as the writers obviously think it is.

Bottom line:
This movie will potentially scare the crap out of you. There are plenty of scenes that will unsettle even the most stalwart of horror afficianados (whether they'll admit it or not). Fans of the game will enjoy the mostly faithful storyline. The story caters both to the gory and psychological sides of horror. The movie mostly sticks to what it's good at and doesn't have any sexual references of any kind. The morality aspect is deeply flawed and silly, and should by no means be taken seriously. The casting was decidedly feminist.

The End of Oblivion

After 125 hours of playtime, 450 saves and 20+ XBOX lockups, I can honestly say I'm done with Elder Scrolls IV. I've collected the entire 1000 points for my XBOX Live gamerscore, completed the main quest, become head of the Mages Guild, Fighter's Guild, Theives Guild and the Dark Brotherhood, become Grand Champion of the Arena, and acquired every house in the game. After all that the game still has a smattering of quests that I haven't completed such as the ridiculously tedious Nirnroot quest, not to mention a dozen or more dungeons that aren't tied to any quests but contain some great loot. There is still plenty of room for improvement of my stats. Add to that the fact that I've only played through as one gender of one race, and you can start to see how enormous the replay potential for this game is. That being said, I probably still won't pick it up again until an expansion or "Game of the Year" edition is released with additional quest lines etc...

Mario's Wacky Worlds and the Zelda CD-I games

I got a new toy yesterday - something I had passed up a few years back (presumably because these babys were really really expensive and didn't offer much bang for the buck). I just got a shiny almost new Philips CD-I player. This was one of those multi-media systems that came out around the same time as the Playstation, Saturn, 3DO and the Jaguar and touted itself as a "multi-media" device. It played music CDs, Video CDs and special CD-I (I for "Interactive") discs, some of which qualified as video games. When I caught wind of a lost Mario game that was fabled to exist for the system, I dug and dug until I found a copy of it on the net. Since there aren't any actually working emulators for the CD-I system, I was forced to purchase one in order to play this Mario game that never was. I was surprised to discover a small but rather dedicated fan following for this platform.

The lost Mario game was about what you can expect from a very early alpha prototype. The levels are there but there is no continuity between them. The code for Mario dying doesn't exist yet so he can't be hurt - there are no bottomless pits. The system has to be reset to get back to the menu because there is not in-game menu or way to exit the stage. The stages themselves would have been impressive if released back in 1993. And the control is surprisingly close to the the real Super Mario World, which, based on what I've read is really impressive. It's beyond the base capabilities of the CD-I system. If this game had been completed, it may have actually saved the CD-I format. It makes me wonder about how many other little gems like this were just washed away into obscurity by money troubles.

This platform is also host to an infamous trio of games (I use the term loosely) based on the Legend of Zelda series. These were the fallout from a deal that Nintendo made with Philips back when the company had been commissioned to provide the CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo (around 1992). I also acquired this trio of games and I have to say after having played them first hand that they're not horribly scar-you-for-life bad like everyone likes to say. True, they don't come close to measuring up to the standard set by the real thing, but if there had been a competent artist/animator working on them, they wouldn't have been so craptacular. It looks very much like someone was trying to storyboard everything to get the syncing and voice acting done with every intention of going back with a proper artist and re-animating everything. The games Link: Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon were animated and voiced with intentional humor. The animation itself was surprisingly fluid, albiet still badly drawn, but these games weren't even trying to be serious Zelda games. Once you get past the animation sequences, there's actually a halfway passable platform game underneath, in the vein of Zelda II. I think the biggest shortcomming of these two games has to be the fact that the animation and dialogue were clearly aimed at younger children, but the difficulty is so high that I doubt many young children would enjoy playing them. The third game, Zelda's adventure was probably the worst of the lot. I was actually surprised by this because I had heard from several sources that it was the best. While the game actually makes a stab at being a proper RPG (it actually has an equipment menu), everything in the game is a digitized bitmap (ala Mortal Kombat and Pit Fighter) which means that there was no art direction whatsoever. The acting and plot are laughable, largely because they are attempting to be so serious. Frame rate wasn't something that we used to think about back in the days of 2D gaming, but it actually becomes an issue here.

In conclusion, I agree that these are clearly the worst Zelda games ever made, but given the standard set by Zelda games in general they're aren't absolutely horrible.

Why I Am a Console Junkie

I've been a die-hard Nintendo fanboy for as long as I've known what Nintendo was. When I first saw the NES and what it did, some magical switch clicked in my head and I've been hooked ever since. I remember getting into arguments that nearly led to blows with Sega fans. Silly? Sure, but I was a kid and what is childhood but a chance to be serious when you're being silly?

Flash forward over a dozen years, and I find myself still having arguments with other games over platform preference, but now the argment isn't Nintendo vs. Sega, it's Console vs. PC.

Now the arguments in favor of PC gaming have always been the following:

• The keyboard and mouse setup offers the ultimate precise control
• PC's are modular and can be way more powerful than consoles
• PC's are useful for a lot more than just playing games - Teamspeak, for example.

These are the points that I find myself debating with PC enthusiasts, and here are my rebuttals:

• Although I freely admit that mouse control allows quicker, more precise targeting than joystick control, it is ergonomically unsound and inferior for traversing game environments.
  
• Although PC's can have higher technical specs than consoles, they are very seldom actually superior because PC hardware is general use and not specialized like a console (in other words, consoles can do more with less because they were made with a specific purpose in mind), this also makes PC's more expensive than a console of comparable power, and much less compatible. PC games tend to have a large number of bugs simply owing to the fact that the game makers have to account for such a diverse variety of possible configurations. This has led to a tendancy of game makers to knowingly release deeply flawed games with the itention of maybe releasing a patch later when they work out what's wrong. Consoles, on the other hand, generally have a static configuration so the game makers only have to make it work on one platform to know that it will play properly for everyone who buys it.
• PC's are useful for other things, but that's not what this debate is about. This debate is about whether PC's are better game machines and they are not.

I will sum up my whole reason for being a console junkie: In 1998 I purchased a copy of Final Fantasy VII for the PC. My present computer, which is well over 15 times as powerful as the Playstation in every conceivable respect, will not play it. The game was designed for Windows 95 and will not run properly on XP, and the manufacturer has absolutely no intention of correcting this problem. So, if I want to play Final Fantasy VII, I have to go back to the Playstation. Of the very few PC titles I have purchased, most of them will not play on my current PC. One could argue that if I had kept all of the old hardware like I kept my console hardware that I'd still be able to play those old games, but my PS2 still plays them fine and if Sony is to be believed, my PS3 will as well.

Oblivion - some chinks in the horse armor

I've now been playing Oblivion for about 50 hours and I have a few more things to say. The game is still phenominal, has yet to become boring or repetitive, and I'm sure I'm only about a third of the way through with it. Some of the newness has worn off, however. I'm up to 14 complete XBOX 360 lockups. I'm not really surprised by this, evidently this is hallmark of Bethesda games. Nor am I really annoyed with it. With a game as rich and complex as this, my programmer's mind is telling me that these are acceptable losses. There were a couple of things that I do take issue with, however. I've run into at least three quests where I had to revert to a previous save and begin all over to complete because glitches or poor design made them unfinishable - one of which was part of the core story! Bethesda ought to worry about correcting these snafus, not charging people extra money for horse armor.

And while I'm on that subject, I have to say that Bethesda ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to profit from something so frivolous and stupid. Expansion packs are one thing, but charging someone for horse armor is downright petty. I hope the whole concept dies a short but painful DIVX-like death. I, for one, will never be so stupid as to spend real money on special game items. It is my hope that gamers will never fall into this trap that Microsoft and Sony are hoping to trap us in where everything is virtual, and you spend money on intangable things.

Microsoft envisions a future where all game content is downloaded from the Internet. While this may seem more convienent, it is a very bad thing. For starters, it destroys any real value that your games have. You won't be able to sell your used games because there won't be anything to sell. You won't be able to let friends borrow your games because Microsoft will not let you - I can say with absolute certaintly that their opinion on the matter will be that if your friend wants to play the game, he/she can come to your house to do it, or buy a copy his/her self. The publishers will have complete control over what you can play and when you can play it. And if that wasn't bad enough, the bargain bins and used game shops which allow so many people to enjoy games without dropping tons of cash will be done away with. So I urge you to resist this trend - don't pay to download games from XBOX Live! and whatever you do, don't waste money on virtual items and cheats.

24 The Game and the progressive scan easter egg

I recently picked up 24 the game for $35 at a local EB. Being an avid fan of the show, I thought it'd be interesting to see how good (or bad) it was. From a story perspective, it's just like the show - in fact it seems to be the remains of the original 3rd season - that is to say chronologically it takes place between season 2 and 3 and features a lot of interesting "oh, that's when that happned" moments. The herkey-jerkey camera bobs just like the show's action sequences giving you a feeling of urgency, and although PS2 graphics are really feeling their age at this point, it manages to pull off a passable in that category. The inane and wildly inaccurate techno-babble is here too - for example they show a picture of what is clearly an encrypted code generator used by banks and the like, but inaccurately describe it as a PDA, and the stereotypical nerdy guy has to try to decrypt its "hard drive" to get at the info (neither PDAs nor code generators have hard drives). I've only played through the first 8 hours or so, and I've been stuck wondering what to do or where to go at least twice - my little guide arrows were either gone, or pointing me somewhere I couldn't go. The level design needed a bit more tweaking, but I've played worse. At the same time, the game is entertaining. The interrogation sequences are clever if repetitive. All in all I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

There was one point of much frustration that I hope to save you from. The game supports progressive scan (which is a big plus in my book) but good luck finding instructions for turning it on. After reading through the manual and coming up with zilch, I called 2k games for support and the scottish guy who answered the phone scratched his head, told me it was my TV, then said that the game actually performs some sort of magical evaluation and evidently decided that my TV wasn't worthy of progressive scan. When I explained the absurdity and technological impossibility of that to him (it's pretty much a one-way street, the Playstation might be able to tell that the cables were connected, but there is no return signal for evaluating the capabilities of the TV it's plugged into), he thought it might be that my Playstation was too old, and then told me (it sounded like he might have been reading this somewhere) that PS2's before model 50000 weren't capable of outputting in progressive scan. When I explained that I have several games that seem to have ignored that limitation and display in progressive scan anyway, then maybe it was only available in the UK/PAL version of the game. When I asked him why the back of the box clearly stated progressive scan as a feature, more head scratching ensued. Remembering the way that games like Star Ocean III and Radiata Stories require you to hold down X and (triangle) as the game starts up to access the progressive scan menu, I tried that and lo and behold it brought up the secret progressive scan menu. The 2k games support guy was very relieved to hear that I wouldn't be grilling him any longer. He was a nice enough fellow, but 2k games ought to at least give these guys some technical manuals for these games if they're paying for me to call all the way to the UK to talk to them.

Laser Tag

Growing up in the 80's I have vague recollections of Laser Tag and it's rival product Photon (at least I think that's what it's called). I never played it when I was little but I always wanted to. So when I was at my nephew's 6^th birthday party this weekend and was invited to play “Lazer Tag” with him and a bunch of his 6-8 year-old friends, I wasn't sure what I was in for. I'm fairly certain that the Laser Tag of the 80's was never quite like what I experienced. For starters, the equipment, a gun shaped like a UPC scanner, and vest with glowing target areas, made everyone look vaguely like a Wal-Mart employee going to war. With the soundtrack from the N64 Goldeneye and the movie Mortal Kombat blasting in the background, a dark maze with strobe lights flashing, blacklights giving everything an ethereal glow, and 7 other people running around trying to shoot you with lasers, it was just like an FPS - the most tiring one I've ever played. After 15 minutes of that, my feet felt like lead and my lungs felt like they had been scraped out with a wire brush (I'm still coughing crap up that I swear has been there since middle school, but I guess that's what happens when you weigh in at nearly 300lb and don't exercise, then suddenly run around like you're seven years old again). That was the best “multi-player” fun I've ever had. Just goes to show you, despite FPS Doug's insistence to the contrary, RL is waay better than FPS.