Three months later: My Nexus 10 Review

So my usual disclaimer - I'm by no means a professional reviewer, nor am I particularly knowledgeable about tablets. That said, I really love my Nexus 10 and have no complaints about it. The screen size and resolution are marvelous. This is my first tablet and my first "second screen" of any kind, so I'll admit to a lack of ready comparisons, so take my raving with a grain of salt.

I now find myself watching television or playing games while cozy underneath warm blankets in bed, which is an incredible luxury. As a result, I tend to go to bed earlier than I used to, since its easier to shut down and go to sleep when all you have to do is roll over and shut your eyes.

I haven't yet used it for reading anything other than the web. It sucks to try and type long messages on it since I'm a touch typist with a really high wpm on a traditional keyboard; feels like its taking forever. The voice recognition software is surprisingly better than I expected, though it does require a certain cadence of speaking in order to not get confused, and even then certain words are nearly impossible for it to recognize.

My favorite use for the Nexus 10 is tied between using it as a second screen while I'm watching TV (looking up details or having my confusion cleared up mid-way through an episode of Downton Abbey is pretty handy) and using the tablet as a portal gaming device. I love PC games and enjoy them way more than I do the offerings of a DS or PSP, but my gaming laptop is heavy and bulky and has a huge recharger block... so plugging it in and using it on a train (or god forbid, a plane) is pretty much never worth the effort. The tablet on the other hand - perfection. It is a divine portable gaming device!

My favorite game so far? Rebuild. (Technically this is Rebuild 2 but I guess the developer didn't want to be confusing.) After the zombie-apocalypse, you have to defend your bastion, reclaim city blocks while scavenging for food and weapons, and provide a safe haven long enough for the survivors to - what else? Rebuild civilization! This is a really fun way to kill some time, and a marvelous game-play concept. I am very much looking forward to the sequel that's currently in development.

Back to my Nexus 10: I haven't had any crashes or lockups, but I have noticed the internet connectivity will sometimes stop working if I've not turned the tablet off for a few days. I did update to Jellybean 4.2.2 and haven't noticed any issues. Other than that, I haven't rooted it or otherwise tinkered with changing anything substantial.

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OK, with that said, every good tablet should be protected with a good case, right?

I bought this case about 45 days ago, and love it. I read lots of case reviews before deciding on this one, mainly because a lot of the other "good" cases were reported to come with a strong scent that lingered for months and were considerably more expensive.

The Blurex ultra slim case fits my Nexus 10 snugly, but isn't bothersome to remove. It folds very easily into three different angles for a self-supported viewing platform. This was a huge issue for me prior to getting a case, since I had a really hard time with propping my tablet up when I wanted to watch some Netflix from bed. (Parks and Rec is my new favorite show!)

This case protects the tablet fairly substantially without covering up any ports or buttons, nor either camera. It feels nice to the touch and overall I'm impressed with it; this feels like a case that should have cost me a lot more than it did.

The one complaint I have is that the little handhold strap is awkward as its placed so I never use it. If it was rotated 90 degrees then it would be much more useful. That said, this case is some pretty amazing bang for your buck compared to what else is out there!

I promise: this is the last post about Starcraft 2 for a while

I finally beat the campaign, and it was a glorious ending! That sure was a tough final mission, though. I felt like the difficulty helped make it feel epic, and therefore fitting... but boy am I glad to finally have it behind me.

Now on to hard difficulty! Ugh, or maybe I'll take a few days off. Raynor's given his Raiders some R&R for a job well done. Maybe even more than well done... maybe burnt. Maybe even charred.

So, my final thoughts now that I've dabbled in the multiplayer and finished the singleplayer: Overall, the single player experience is a very fun and well-created campaign experience that would bear at least two play-throughs, and possibly more depending on your personality. Once you complete the campaign, there's plenty of challenge missions that help prepare you for multiplayer by familiarizing you with various units and counters, along with more advanced strategies.

When you're finally ready, you can hop into the beginner's league and play 50 unranked matches that give you a feel for how to play online. They include a very cool utility at the end of a match; you can see your opponents build order, along with income rates and troop production/army strength.

Players that actually care about getting better can reverse engineer a better strategy and incorporate it into their own. Even better, replays are very easy to save and watch now, giving you the perfect opportunity to study strategies that have proven more effective than your own.

Although multiplayer seems to be fairly well balanced, it is still the 90's insofar as actions-per-minute are what wins a battle. It is all about micromanagement, and that doesn't particularly appeal to me. I'll likely wile away most of my hours on Battle.net in the comfortable embrace of the use-map-settings category. Already there are plenty of impressive game-types, including tower defense and even a first-person-shooter mod!

Truly, what we'll see done using the Starcraft 2 map editor is going to be a veritable wealth of tangible fun. I can't wait to see what happens in the coming months.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds is Jim Raynor

One of things I really noticed about Starcraft 2 is how they created a very vivid theme. It is most definitely a Western, which may be what they were trying to do with the original Starcraft? Unfortunately, all I really felt was "rednecks in space" for the Terrans in the first game.

What I'm pretty sure is a violin, used to just set the tone of the adventure, occurs regularly throughout most of the campaign. It reminded me very much of Firefly. Several times, in fact, I very much got the feeling that the writers had at least seen Joss Whedon's Space Western. Not that I'm complaining, mind.

I think it works very well, and although I see a similarity it could just be the natural result of anyone who knows what a Western is, and then adapts it into a Sci-Fi adventure. In any case, it is a damn good theme and really creates an enjoyable and vivid video game experience. I'd truly liken it more to an interactive cinematic experience, as I said before.

The multiplayer, on the other hand, seems to be a bit lackluster as far as innovation goes. Then again, Starcraft didn't originally become the multiplayer RTS due to innovation; it was the perfectly calibrated balance between the units and teams that created such a legacy, and I have every confidence that they will continue their proud tradition.

Of course, success in Starcraft depends very much on the number of your actions per minute. In other words, it is all about the micromanagement... something I'm not a huge fan of personally. In fact, I've long maintained that the Real Time Strategy genre was a bit misnamed; seems like its mostly a focus on tactics, with minimal strategy necessary.

In any case, I love the theme and overall storyline to Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, and I can't wait for the next installment in the series!

Now to try my hand (yet again) at the final mission of the campaign. Been stuck for days now! :(

Starcraft 2 - First Impressions

Having done little else for the past 36 hours, I thought I'd write a quick post talking about Starcraft 2. So far my experience has been quite fun! I've had three crashes, (two lockups requiring a restart, and one crash to desktop) so I feel like it is pretty damn stable for a newly released game.

The game-play is fun, familiar yet innovative. The storyline is amazing, in my opinion truly more like a cinematic experience than a video game story. The voice acting is superb, the animation is excellent, and the characterization is almost universally very well done.

I really enjoy the way the campaign is set up, too. It is very fun and offers some choices in way of how you proceed, as well as the order you take various missions and campaign-wide unit upgrades. There's a lot of small touches that make it really come alive, too.

My favorite thing so far is just the sheer number of different mechanics they built into the campaign. Most missions are so completely fun and unique that it is really an experience to play through them. I'm excited at the possibilities, and can't wait to see some awesome user-made custom maps.

All in all, if you were on the fence about buying it, I'd highly recommend it. Even if you don't like RTS games in general, there's a casual mode and the story itself is so good that it'd be worth it in my opinion.

And with that, it is past time I get back into the game and try to figure out a strategy that'll help me beat the last mission!

Nostalgia: Exosquad

I'm not sure if anyone remembers Exosquad, but it was one of my favorite TV shows as a child. It dealt with a lot of mature issues, including: the ethics of "playing god", racism and the fight for acceptance, death and loss, working hard towards your goals, perseverance, teamwork, religion, and politics.

That's a lot to throw into what is nominally a kid's show, eh? But I remember it resonating within me, because even as a kid I got the idea that the world wasn't as rosy as the other kids' shows would have me believe.

One of my favorite things about Exosquad was how it avoided painting a simplistic "good verses evil" schema; they went out of their way to show that the "bad guys" were actually treated very poorly and were unfairly oppressed when they rose up to fight against humanity.

I'm sadly not familiar with modern day kids' cartoons, but I hope that there's at least one similar show out there that can help the young'ins get a head start on understanding and being ready to deal with so many heavy issues.

If you're interested in watching it, either for the first time (bear in mind it is a kids' show and furthermore its from the 90s...) or else for nostalgia's sake, you can find them here thanks to Hulu.

On a different note, we have yet another "my hot beverage was hot" lawsuit, this time against Starbucks. I swear, historians will refer to our time period as either the age of liability or the age of entitlement. Either way, I find it kind of embarrassing.

I'm off to my last undergrad final ever!

Mount & Blade (This is not a euphamism)

Another solid game that one of my friends got me into is Mount & Blade. And when I say "solid", I guess I'm lying to your face. It is a half-assed game that has tons of flaws. This can be forgiven somewhat because the whole thing was originally done by a husband/wife team, and the team still remains extremely small. But the real reason for forgiveness is because, in spite of its flaws, it is an incredibly fun game to play!

The basic beauty of the game lies in its realistic mounted medieval combat simulation. Heck, I mean, I figure its realistic but I'm no expert on the subject. Let's just compromise and say its believable, and feels quite natural.

Overall the game world is quite lacking in content, but the open-ended sandbox nature of the game gives you plenty of enjoyment nonetheless. You can start a character that focuses on earning a fortune through trade, hiring mercenaries to protect your caravan as you go. Or you can create a tournament champion who travels the world, seeking the wealth that can be earned by winning various tourneys through the lands. Best of all, you can be a mercenary captain who builds a war band and hires on to one of the various kingdoms vying for control of the region.

There really are plenty of possibilities, though I would have to say by far the best is earning a title and fief. This game really does feel like its a beta build of something a lot better than it currently is, and it is sorely lacking in any overarching plot. However, there are plenty of free mods which fix these and other problems, as well as give you tons of replayability.

The game is mostly about tactical combat, though there are RPG elements involved in how you level up and acquire various skills and companions. I bought it on sale a while back, and have been quite pleased with the bang for my buck. Currently its being sold for around $30 USD, but you can sometimes find it on sale at various digital distribution services. With all the mod support, even the full price tag isn't too bad in my opinion.

Best of all, the game has a free demo you can download and play. Basically the demo is the full game, with a very low level cap. So I recommend at the very least trying the demo.

I find it interesting how much time I've sunk into a game that feels so incomplete, but can't say that I regret it. What are some other games that have the feel of being horribly flawed, yet you can't get enough of?

Avatar 3D

I saw Avatar 3D last night. It was pretty good, definitely worth the $8 ticket for the experience. Especially because of the 3D effect, it was really awesome to see. I honestly figure this film shows the future of entertainment. I know that Japanese electronics manufacturers are working on 3D projection technology that won't require glasses and will work on a home TV. I'm pretty pumped for that happening in my life time!

As far as the movie itself... without going into spoilers, it was a terrifically beautiful movie that was ruined by being way too black-and-white, way too overtly political, and having an arbitrary deus ex machina in the film that most people found difficult to swallow.

For myself, the first two were the biggest problems since I could readily accept the idea as presented in the film which led to the deus ex machina situation.

However, a lot of the lines that came from the film's BBEG were totally out of place in the context he was saying them, and clearly a political statement by the film's writers/director. It was frustrating how blatant James Cameron was about shoving his opinions into this fantastic sci-fi story.

The ethics as presented by the film were extremely black and white. There was no questioning who was right, what was evil, etc. In my opinion, the film missed a chance to truly be thought-provoking and challenge the viewer to actually have to think for themselves. As it stands, the film is completely vapid and suffered from being so clear-cut.

Overall, Avatar is definitely a film worth seeing just for how beautiful it is. As I mentioned before, the 3D effects are amazing and really add to the film's visual beauty. I also loved the portrayal of advanced human technology, and figure that they got it pretty accurately. I figure we'll see a lot of stuff similar to that in my lifetime.

Bottom line: Avatar is a good movie that could have been great, but definitely wasn't.

Max Payne (the movie)

I've had a busy day today, because several packages I had been waiting for finally arrived. Among them was my computer! Yay, I'm once again able to game and watch por.. movies. I immediately bought Fallout 3 GOTY edition and will be enjoying it in a few years. I started downloading it two hours ago and am up to 7% now; the one major drawback about digital purchases! Anyways...

So over the weekend I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was absolutely hilarious, and afterwords Max Payne came on. I wasn't actually watching the TV since we had pulled out the Christmas tree and were working on getting it up (a bit late, I know,) but as the movie began I was sort of drawn in and after the first five minutes had totally started ignoring the tree in favor of the movie.

I'm not a huge "movies based on video games" guy, though I sometimes give them a shot. I loved Doom, even though it had nothing to do with the game whatsoever (not set on Mars, not about him killing demons,) but I really loathed what they did with Resident Evil. Having never played Max Payne, I was not at all interested in the movie when it first came out.

I do tend to like a well done crime noir film, but often times they just fall short of what I would enjoy. Too many cliches and whatnot really kill the genre for me, most of the time.

Anyways, apparently it got a lot of bad reviews based on the plot and Mark Wahlberg's acting. I found neither to be particularly bad, and as I said overall I enjoyed the movie. Besides, it is mostly action and cool special effects, so I don't think it really needs to have a stupendous plot and great acting.

Anyways, now that I've seen the film, I'm definitely going to check out the game. What about you? Do you ever check out a game because of the film, instead of vice versa? Do you usually like video game films, or no?