French Snow and Adventures!

Yes, I did say 'French Snow'... more on that in a bit.

David 4.10 and I went for a little walk to the local video store last night. Funny how a little walk that can take about five to ten minutes by myself can turn into a half hour hike with a four year old! Anyway, we had fun throwing snow at each other and picking up random branches at desiccating imaginary snow-monsters, so the time it took to walk there was definitely put to good use. So we were having all kinds of fun, and I noticed something interesting when David is talking: certain words coming out of his mouth are heavily accented the same way I speak. You may think that statement requires and obvious ‘duh!’, but I was still both floored and pleased by that. You see, since French is the primary language we speak at home and I’m essentially a relocated Quebecer, I haven’t yet assimilated the local accent, even after 15 years or so. So as David and I were talking about the snow (which is ‘neige’ in French), I noticed that he repeated that word exactly like I say it and not like the locals pronounce it. It’s really difficult to describe how different the word actually sounds to a non-French speaker, but the best explanation I can come up with is that this eastern side of the country pronounces the word much more softly than their southern Quebec counterparts: there’s definitely an emphasis put on the middle syllable that’s lacking here with the general population. Not that one pronunciation is better than the other or anything, it’s just a neat little detail I hadn’t noticed before, and I thought it was cool how David had adapted (for the moment anyway) my method of saying that particular word in comparison to what he might here from other people around him.

So we went to the video store and David was extremely pleased to pick up a Scooby-Doo DVD, which we watched together for a bit before his bath time last evening. Since I finished ‘Ratchet & Clank Future’ over the weekend (more on that in a bit) and I was interested in renting something else for the PS3. I ended up checking out ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune’. I played for about half an hour last night and here are my quick impressions:

1 - It’s gorgeous: Needless to say that the PS3 can adeptly push pixels, but the art direction, animation and general look of the game is excellent.

2 - Excellent Pacing: Granted, I’m not very far in the game, but the pacing so far is excellent and really makes me want to push forward and play some more. Personally, this definitely seems due to the intuitive level design and writing, which I bring up in point number 3.

3 - Good Writing: I’ve heard arguments that, taken on its own, the writing for the game is the equivalent of what you’d find in an airport paperback novel. It sounds about right in my book, since it’s well know that most videogames aren’t all that big on writing, so the fact that this game really had some thought going into the story and the characters does put it above much of the mediocrity that make up the medium. The main character, Nathan Drake, comes across as an interesting mix of one third Indiana Jones mixed in with two thirds of Malcolm Reynolds, and it comes across well on the screen due to his dialogue and his actual animation. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m impressed.

So yes I rented the game, but I just found it used locally online for peanuts, so I think I’ll end up buying this one in order to see properly through to the end.

Finally, even though I mentioned finishing Ratchet & Clank earlier, I’m far from done with the game. You see, like every other Ratchet & Clank game, once you complete it for that first time, you unlock a ‘challenge’ mode, where the enemies are tougher and you take more damage as you get hit. But that’s not really what’s so compelling: what manages to hook me into a second go at the game (something I do very rarely) is that you get the opportunity to continually upgrade your weapons as you go. It might not seem like much, but that little mechanic has managed to ensnare me to do the game over one more time, and seeing the bolts fly all over the screen has this little ‘je ne sais quoi’ that I find oh so satisfying.

NIN / TV / Dump

Last word for now on the new Nine Inch Nails album: it’s awesome. If you, dear reader, actually have any interest in music at all, spend the $5 and get ‘Ghosts I-IV’; for the price of a coffee at Starbucks, you get two hours of music! You cannot lose, period.

Anyway, they did what was called a ‘File Dump’ here at work last Friday. What this meant was that, as of noon last Friday, no files moved whatsoever until every file’s location was essentially recorded in the system. On a more personal level, what this meant for me is that I had next to nothing to do until all the files resumed their typical movements. That might not make much sense right off, but when you consider that my job is to get files from one point to another, then you might start seeing how my workflow level was very much minimized. The normal file movement resumed yesterday afternoon, so as of today everything was pretty much back to normal. Which is good, since there’s nothing I hate more than having nothing to do at work... Actually, that’s not true, there are a lot of things I hate more, but you get the idea right?

On a different note, TV is pissing me off lately: there’s really nothing to watch. Normally, my wife and I seek out new TV shows to watch or catch up on stuff we could have missed, but lately I’ve even lost the motivation to do that. We recently finished the second season of ‘Project Runway’, and I really enjoyed that, so I’m thinking we’ll be jumping into season 3 of that show much sooner than later. The season / half-season of the ‘Sarah Conner Chronicles’ concluded last night, so at least I know we’ve got that waiting for us on the DVR. Plus, ‘Torchwood’ is still going strong which, if I remember correctly, will be followed by Doctor Who sometime in March. Anyway, it’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, but I at least wanted to get it out there.

Oh, and ‘Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction’ is all kinds of awesome.

Ice Cream and Mic Stands

Well, it’s Friday: I’ve officially made it a week with this blog. Typically, during the weekends, I don’t get much of a chance to sit down at the computer since most of that time is spent running around with my family, but we’ll see if I can manage.

David 4.9, my wife and I went out for a mini-Valentine’s Day supper last night, which was nice. I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s Day, primarily because I don’t like celebrating holidays with the initials ‘VD’, but our little outing last night was welcome and pleasant. We just essentially went to the mall and had a bite there, since being accompanied by a 4.9 year old is not quite conducive to romancing. David devoured his popcorn chicken and was then more than happy to put away some chocolate ice-cream as well. Since he was quite ill not too long ago, I’m still a bit happy inside whenever I see him succumb to his seemingly large appetite. Seeing a 4 year old not eat when he’s sick is not fun.

I’ve been thinking of going through the ‘Band World Tour’ in Rock Band by myself by using a mic stand and playing either the bass or the guitar. Do I want to be cool like Sting or just do the Thom Yorke thing? I’m not quite sure yet. I’m probably going to stop buy a local music store sometime this weekend and pic up a cheap mic stand. Then I’ll start belting out the tunes and wailing away on a plastic Stratocaster: oh yeah, it’s totally the rocker’s life for me.

The NDP numbers came out yesterday and I always find those fascinating. Fanboys love to look at the numbers and make an argument as to which console is ‘better’, but personally I just like seeing the sales trends for each unit. Here are the numbers that have been released:

Wii: 274,000
PS3: 269,000
PS2: 264,000
DS: 251,000
360: 230,000
PSP 230,000

Software wise, this is the top 5:

1- Call of Duty 4 (360) 330.9K
2- Wii Play (Wii) 298.1K
3- Guitar Hero III (Wii) 239.6K
4- Rock Band (360) 183.8K
5- Guitar Hero III (360) 182.7K

So my take on this: the Wii is still going very strong sales wise, but what’s this in the number 2 position? The PS3? Wow, how’d that happen? Well, I’m thinking that can be explained from a few different standpoints.

First off: Blu-Ray has virtually been declared the winner in the HD format wars. With Warner declaring their Blu-Ray exclusivity intentions not so long ago, Netflix stating that they’ll be phasing out HD-DVD in the near future, the writing is pretty much on the wall for HD-DVD. That can’t but help the PS3, since it’s essentially one of the cheapest (and best) Blu-Ray players on the market. Personally, I’ll wait until it drops to $299 before I pick one up, but that’s just me. Second, Sony has made positive strides in recovering from their tarnished image. It’s no secret that the advertising push behind the launch of the PS3 and the months after was absolutely horrible and, in a nutshell, insulting to the very demographic they were trying to court. Actually, scratch that, initially Sony didn’t even really KNOW at which group to aim the PS3: is it a game machine, is it a movie player, is it a media convergence device? The lack of focus really didn’t help Sony at that point, but at this moment, they seem to be making positive strides in recovering that image. Good for them. Third (and last thing I can think of) is Microsoft’s 360 ‘shortage’. See how I put ‘shortage’ in quotes there? I wasn’t just being fancy. Anecdotal evidence I’ve seen first hand to really support a shortage per se, since I spotted many Halo and Arcade units at stores last night. However, I did notice a lack of Pro’s and Elite’s, which is kind of unusual. The Xbox 360 Pro is probably the best value proposition you can get, but why does it seem so conspicuously absent in stores? There’s a conspiracy theory running around stating that Microsoft is asking retailers to return the Pro’s and Elite’s containing the Falcon chipset in order to get them potentially restocked with the new revised chipset. What that would mean for Microsoft is that, further down the line as the ‘newer’ system make their way to consumers, less failures will be accrued due to the famous ‘Red Ring of Death’ scenario. Sounds a little farfetched in my opinion. Personally I just think that Microsoft came out with this ‘shortage’ story just a few days before the NDP’s hit to offset the PS3’s time in the #2 position: even though they’re lagging behind the PS3 for the first time, well, EVER, they come out looking not quite as bad as they potentially could’ve.

Finally (for now, anyway) - Rock Band at #4? Awesome!