...Game Review Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy

Psi-ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - PS2

Bored with cookie cutter games that consist of mainly small additions or changes to existing formulas? Psi-ops presents some totally new game control concepts put together in a 3rd person shooter style. While it lacks in polish, the actual fun of how you interact with the environments, enemies and puzzles make the a very worthwhile purchase.

The game is pretty standard fare on the outset...3rd person with a camera that has to be manually adjusted with the right analog stick. Targeting for your reticle has some well done computer assistance. The game uses a metroid-syle slow learning of all your abilities which in this case is done via flashbacks. Most every time you feel like you are exhausting all you can do with a power, you reach a point in the game where you learn another ability...in many cases this is especially cool because you can combine powers (set an enemy on fire using pyro and then throw him into a exploding barrel). Unlike a lot of games where I feel like I've done everything I can do withing the first 30 minutes, I really wanted to keep playing a see what was coming next.

All is not perfectly rosey however. The most noticible problem is the over-the-top story complete with hero who doesn't trust anyone and terrible voice acting. Compounding this problem is some pretty lackluster character design and overall inconsistent art direction. I would love to play this game with the artisitic polish of Metal Gear Solid...Other minor issues are some collision mesh not matching with the art, and some pretty bad 8-bit-like sounds (the sound it makes when you punch a cement wall is laughable...bush-league pysche out shit!). Also the last power you get and the puzzles surrounding it are not as fun as the rest.

Overall, I really liked this game. Around half-way thru I found myself wishing I had the chance to work on the game which is always a sign of a good game to me. It had a perfect difficulty and game length for me (around 10 hours) and never seemed like a chore except for the last boss which I had to cheat and use gamefaqs to figure out how to beat him.

B+

Notes: At last mention I heard this game had only sold 30,000 units and the team is not working on a sequel. Bummer!

...N vs. the Pillow

One night last weekend seemed to be a night like any other down here in LA. Celebrity poker challenge was on, the charles shaw was flowing, and my roommate (called N here for his sake) and I were on the couch watching TV. Suddenly and without warning all things changed as N was taken down for the count by a mystery opponent.

The pillow had taken enough. It wasn't enough the N used the pillow for a head rest or under his amrpit...no...N would toss the pillow to the side of the couch crashing towards the blinds. After weeks of abuse the pillow hatched a plan; The next time N tosses him aside, the pillow would take him out...and take him out it did.

Now N had finally got his ass off the couch to go do something. As usual he put his foot down on the pillow to rub in his off-couchness. But the pillow did not sink in and take it as he usually did. Instead a subtle twist to the side and N took a plunge worthy of King-King coming down from the empire state building. The sound and thud towards the ground was as immense from my view as the time it took for N to fall it the first place (It felt like 10 seconds).

Fortunately for N, he managed to kick out his body away from the intended pillow targets. First stop, N's brand new laptop computer. Next and what would be the knockout blow, the corner of our steel grade coffee table. Instead the pillow would have to be content with a TKO and a psychological victory.

Pillow:1 Roommate:0

Update: As I'm at work now N is at home on his first day off since the fight...who knows what's happening on or near the couch right now...

Firefox rules

So there's a internet explorer alternative out there that I've been suing for a few months called firefox. It's free and the best thing about it are extensions people write to make it even better. Here's the ones I'm using right now:

• Basics - adds a new tab button on your tab bar
• FLST - when a tab is closed, this will bring the last tab bar you were on into focus (defualt behavior is the tab to the left)
• ieview - right click on a link and select this to open the link in internet explorer
• BugMeNot - awesome extension that allows you to use submitted name/passwords to get into sites you're too lazy to register for (NY times, Miami Herald etc...)
• Web Developer - very usefull if you are making a web site
• Tab x - adds a button to close the tab on every tab
• Petit TabBrowser Extension - essential extention to allow links to open in new tabs instead of new windows (I've tried others that claim to do this and this one works best)
• undoclosetab - right click on the tab bar and you can undo a tab you've closed

Lemme know if I'm missing any essentials.

...it's been awhile (haha)

Layout should be close to final...do you likey? Here's a quick list of things good and bad 'bout me being in LA:

Pros:
great greek food
great mexican food
quiet place to sleep
nice roommate
charles shaw

Cons:
no tamsen
no tivo
no vietnamese
no games at work
no cd collection
no time to do much

...and someday actual content!

We'll I've just updated the template once again. Hopefully I'll be satisfied with this one.

My roommate is a nice guy. He really isn't annoying. Here's his favorite link. What happened earlier was satire. I think. http://www.wizards.com/magic/welcome.asp

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