Justin Brogan

A farewell to arms, RIP Logitech MX1000

Three years ago, around the time I got my gaming quality computer, I bought a mouse. It was a wireless mouse, made by Logitech. The first laser mouse to exist in the world commercially, the MX1000. It served me well. Nice shape, long battery life, great design, good weight, and very few problems. However, as with all things, one must move on. My good old mouse has started to deteriorate. All of the labels are warn or missing completely, the feet are entirely gone, the charger barely works anymore, and the plastic layers are fading. So now I must bid farewell to my trusty rechargable Logitech mouse for another.

In a few days I will, if my eBay seller can get his Paypal up and running eventually, have a brand new(see factory refurbished) Logitech(go with what you know and the companies you trust) MX Revolution. Rest In Peace my trusty mouse, you have served me well.

Sony has just about beaten the church, baby jesus cries

Now, if you haven’t heard of the battle between the Angelican Manchester Church and Insomniac, then let me give you the quick version. Insomniac games has created Resistance for Sony’s PS3, giving them one of their few, if not only, good launch title. Well in the game you go through a famous British Church, this church being the Angelican Church in Manchester. The Bishop, amongst others presumably, having a war being fought in their Church in such a Photorealistic manner due to gun control with in Manchester.

Well Sony and the Church have fought back and forth, like children over a small toy, about the subject. Well it seems that, according to British solicitor Alex Chapman, the church is going to be fighting an uphill battle against Sony. According to British copyright law, infringement cannot be brought against buildings or sculptures that are on permanent public display. Simply put, unless the church finds some clause with in British law, or have the hand of God smite the heathen Sony corporation, there’ll be no pulling of Resistance from the retail market.

For more information hit up this lovely Kotaku page giving you all the up to the minute information

Day Watch, best sequel of the summer so far?

2007 has been called the summer of Sequels, with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Pirates 3, Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, 28 Weeks Later, Ocean’s Thirteen, Evan Almighty, and so forth. There are more sequels than you can shake a stick at, and few of which have faired as well as the originals did critically. Considering all of this one would be discouraged, right?

Well last week a Russian fantasy movie based on a series of books, somewhat akin to The Lord of the Ring novels, was released. The second movie in the series, Day Watch(or Dnevnoi Dozor in it’s native Russian), continues a year or so after the first movie(Night Watch). While Pirates required you to remember much of the second movie, Day Watch does no such thing. Sure, watching Night Watch will help you understand a bit, but going directly to the theater and seeing Day Watch won’t leave you in the dark completely.

The movie itself is solid, and quite an epic. The story is nicely laid out, not too confusing that you made more sense of Pirates 3, and there wasn’t so much in the movie that it made Spidey 3 seems small. Much of the movie, despite not delving much into the abilities of the Dark and Light ones, shows off a unique look at magic within the movie’s universe. All of this ties greatly with the surprisingly well done visual effects used in the movie.

Each visual effect blends beautifully from faux to real nearly flawlessly without looking fake. Things like a Parrot turning into a human being in a cheesy 80s suit, or a flying crow shifting into a sword wielding magical warrior midflight seem of the norm. While high paced action scenes like a sports car driving along the side of a building, or a rain of small children’s aluminum balls destroying much of Moscow seem to out shine even the biggest budget titles. Surprisingly enough as well the usage of subtitles in the movie is one of the most dynamic additions to the movie. While they can often be a bore with other movies, Fox has used the addition of subtitles to interact with the movie’s actions and scenes in an entertaining easter egg hunt.

Sequels come and go, while some leave a sour aftertaste, but Day Watch just further sweetens the movie franchise. However, as entertaining as the movie is, you might have trouble finding it in theaters. Fox gave it a very limited release, with a mere 2 theaters in my native SoCal showing it. It might be best to wait for the wider release later this month, or even the DVD release.

The Joker is F@&KING MAD!

Funny? No just damn scary.

Batman Begins, as far as I care, is the single best Batman Movie to have ever been made. They made the Batman what he once was, a dark brooding detective, not a happy go lucky idiot in tights. Granted, the Batmobile was strange, but everything else about the movie was beyond anything that has been released in the past.So after seeing it numerous times and hearing they’re making a second one years ago I was, as most would be, thrilled. Then they released a cast list, and I saw Heath Ledger as the joker. Heath Ledger?! One of the cowboys from Brokeback Mountain? I almost cried… well not really, but I wasn’t too happy. I thought about it though, and the more I thought the less I cared.

Here we are now, 2007, the Dark Knight(the title for the next Batman movie) a few months away, and we’re seeing some actual pictures of the Joker. Not a Photoshopped picture, like you will get for googling “Joker Dark Knight”, but full make up of Heath Ledger as the joker and Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. Both pictures revealed via a Viral Marketing website set up by Warner Brothers.

At first we’re given a Political picture of Harvey Dent, poised like a classic patriotic superhero, but with a fake smile added. The picture dissolves and we see a disturbing mugshot of a man wearing white face paint and a large smile made with two grotesque scars on each side of his face. This is the joker, and he scares the crap out of me.

Now after this was released many people complained, and I understand why. Everyone thinks of a normal man with green hair, white face paint, and a lot of ivory because of his abnormally large smile. This is understandable, that’s how he’s portrayed in every TV show, Comic book, Cartoon show, Video game, and just about everything else. I on the other hand like the appearance, let me tell you why.

The Joker is utterly bonkers. There’s not a single sane bone in his body. If there were he’d remove it himself and make a toy out of it. A man of the Joker’s insanity isn’t going to strike fear in the hearts of anyone with clown paint on their face and plastic surgery, at least not in the real world. The new Batman movies are realistic, and because of that the Jack Nicholson Joker isn’t going to work. This joker is beyond criminally insane, and the best visual way to show that is through(one can assume) self mutilation.

It may be out of the norm, and extremely scary, but isn’t that what one of the Batman’s biggest enemies should be? Scary and out of the norm? Even if you don’t like it consider how they made Venom look in Spiderman 3, and we don’t want another Venom do we?

Damn you LittleBigPlanet and your cuteness!

Long time no write, but that’s besides the point. At GDC this year Sony unveiled their new Online sandbox platformer, LittleBigPlanet. The title blew me away, and made me giggle like a little school girl. It combines sandbox creativity, ala Garry’s Mod, online co-op, ala Crackdown or Gears of War, and 2.5D platforming, ala Viewtiful Joe.

In the title uses small canvas fabric dolls as a small pallet. With the doll you can create your own character in almost anyway you can imagine. You can add small items you collect through the game, like hats and shirts, to your character. If that’s not enough you can add stickers and items that you usually use to decorate the level on your character.

Level design is also a big part of the game. On top of the levels that the game comes with you can create unique levels from scratch using everything you come across by playing through the premade levels. After you’ve made the levels using anything from large rocks, stickers, and soccer balls you can set them up on the PSN where millions of people can try the game, rate it, and endorse it.

Now this all sounds kind of boring if it’s not fun, right? Well the development team that’s making LBP is the same team that made a small indie game that popped up on Steam years ago called Rag Doll Kung Fu. Just like RGKF you use physics and rag doll to control your character, but not as freely as rag doll did. The characters walk just like they would in any 2D platformer, and then use rag doll physics to hold and control items around the environment, like large oranges, small pullies, large skateboards, or even your own friends.

The features are many and exciting. The design is cute and creative. The music is adorable and addictive(think Katamari Damacy or LocoRoco). If you don’t have a PS3, or just lack a reason to get one, look into LittleBigPlanet. You’ll want to pick one up just for it, I know I do.

Activision dropped the ball

Okay when it comes to games based on movies the consensus is generally that they suck. The rare exception is the Chronicles of Riddick and Spiderman 2 the game. Now Spiderman 3 has come out, and so did the game. It took the same brilliant swinging system from last Spiderman movie game, and put it on numerous platforms making the area you can swing around much larger. Well they screwed it up.

Spiderman 3 is a horrible excuse for a sequel. The camera controls suck, you can’t climb a wall without it going utterly bonkers giving you a headache. The graphics look like ASS, even on a 360. The combat is decent, but nothing to write home about. Sure, swinging is fun, but swinging around for hours on end gets quite tedious.

From what I’ve seen of the Wii version it’s the same deal. Poor controls, bad graphics, and an almost worthless experience. If you want a superhero Sandbox game pick up either Spiderman 2, Crackdown, or Hulk Ultimate Destruction, but avoid Spiderman 3 at all costs.