Exploded Drawing opens with “Fast Canoe”, giving a good impression of what this album is about: weird guitar riffs, a jumpy drum beat, and a steady bass line. “Bridesmaid Blues” follows with more punk feel and ethereal vocals. The next song, “Flower of Forgiveness” displays Polvo’s ability to create driving rhythms and staccato, abrupt transitions underneath lyrically soft vocals. It’s not all hard rock though. “Passive Attack” is a short, springy melody featuring what sounds like mandolin and shamisen. Following is “Light of the Moon” which is best described as light cowboy psychedelia.

As quickly as the album takes a break, it gets right back into action with “Crumbling Down”. The verses are heavy punk, but the chorus transitions into a flowing progression that sounds like early Modest Mouse. By now you should expect that these songs don’t stick to one mood for long, and this is held true with “Street Knowledge”, which displays odd, distant vocals, a bright synth, and sharp harpsichord-like strings. Once again, as soon as things mellow out, the mood is brought back to full energy. The next song “High-Wire Moves” is perhaps my favorite song on the album. Moving from an in-your-face punk beat to a slick and slow balancing act progression and soon into a subtly anthemic movement reminiscent of Sebadoh, Polvo’s ability to travel through many states of mind is best exemplified in this single song. The next song, which closes out the first LP, is titled “Monolith”, yet sounds more soft and inquisitive than the title implies.

Opening up the second half of the album is “In This Life”, a song which epitomizes mid-90’s indie rock and both celebrates and chastises life itself in one fell swoop. Next up is “The Secret’s Secret”, an epic and solemn instrumental. With no lyrics, the intention of this song is hidden within the melody, but Polvo creates a telling mood. Shifting styles into something that sounds like a Dirty era Sonic Youth song is “Snowstorm in Iowa”. It must be wild and fierce when it snows in Iowa, as this song gives off nothing like a crystalline tranquillity. Closing off the third side of the record is “The Purple Bear”, a distinctly 90’s goofy song like one of Pavement’s many odd and bratty songs.

The final part of the album is introduced by “Taste of Your Mind”, a groovy bit of psychedelic soul-searching (in the mind of another). Near the end of this song, the tone of the song becomes more open and reverberated, so I’m guessing Ash Bowie made it into someone’s expansive skull. “Missing Receipts” is a slow, echoing, and brief instrumental that creates an oddly frustrating ambience. Ending the album is the 12 minute epic “When Will You Die For the Last Time in My Dreams” that drifts in and out of frustration, contemplation, and reassurance.

Each song contained on Exploded Drawing is unique in its own right, but as a whole the album is cohesive. Despite the various moods and tempos and styles, every song belongs on this album without a doubt. When I first listened to Exploded Drawing, I wasn’t too impressed. But with each listen I find something new to fall in love with. The hooks cut deep, and I keep finding new ways that the songs are interconnected with each other.

Polvo is generally overlooked, ignored, or just not well known, which is unfortunate as there is a lot to love here. And admittedly, it wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally gave them a good listen. I wish I had paid attention long before. Exploded Drawing is just an album that can be listened to over and over again while remaining fresh and exciting with each listen.

“Fallout is the complete gaming experience. A fantastic story, nice visuals, fun, engaging combat, easy controls, great replay value, and tons of customization make Fallout one of the best games I have ever played. If you like Diablo or RPGs in general, Fallout will blow your mind.”

“Fallout 2 is a worthy sequel to one of the best PC games ever made. It takes everything that made the original great and duplicates the formula. The graphics are the same, the sound is the same, the gameplay is the same, and the story is similar to the first. Those played the first game know this isn’t a bad thing.”

The Fallout universe splinters from our own following World War II. Socially, Fallout’s America never evolved beyond the 1950’s, however, advancements in technology occurred at a much greater rate than our universe. In 2077, a nuclear war between The United States and China sends our world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Luckily, the U.S. government created underground structures known as vaults in order to house people (a select few) in case of a nuclear strike. Our protagonist is the ancestor of vault dwellers, and that is where Fallout 3 begins: in vault 101 and 200 after the bombs dropped.

The game starts with your literal birth. You pop out of the womb and your father greets you. He then brings up a computer that projects what you will look like in the future. Here you begin customizing your character by constructing their adult face and hair (I recreated Charles Bronson). After completing this task, you are propelled a year into the future where you can distribute points into categories like strength, charisma, intelligence, and endurance. Following this, you attend your tenth birthday party and, when you’re sixteen, complete a test to determine your future job in the vault. Lastly, you are awaken in the night to discover your father is missing and the vault is in a state of chaos. You make your escape and set foot into the D.C. wasteland for the first time. This process was an interesting way to design a character and begin a game. I hope more developers take the time to think of creative ways to entwine storytelling with character creation.

From this point your character can do as he/she pleases. Your environment is a large portion of Washington D.C. and the area north and west of the city. The main storyline revolves around finding your father and understanding why he left the vault. The early portion of the story is strong. Exploring a destroyed Washington D.C. and stumbling across makeshift cities that have risen from the wastes emerges the gamer wonderfully. Finding museums in the city or a new town in the countryside to explore is exciting at first. The isolation and sense of destruction you feel is perfect. However, towards the end of the game the feeling of awe is dimmed. This happens because indoor environments are done in a cookie cutter fashion and there are not enough quests to partake in. Understandably some environments will look similar. Vaults and Metro stations should all look similar but buildings and homes in the wasteland should have been more unique. It becomes pretty dull exploring factory after factory.

My other gripe about the environments in Fallout 3 is that people you encounter offer far too little to do. In Fallout 1 and 2, there would be many quests to complete in the large cities and numerous personalities that would make those locations come alive. Fallout 3 suffers from a lack of quests and standout people. The sense of awe is also dimmed because of the story. The story changes pace and everything that was built up so perfectly climaxes suddenly. It seems unbalanced and incomplete somehow. Also, you are not allowed to continue your game after the credits roll. The previous Fallout games let you keep playing so you could explore everything and finish anything that was left undone. It made the game more fun because you were so powerful by that point that you could destroy anything that got in your way. Fallout 3 confines you more than I would have thought or wanted.

The sound and visuals are great but each has a major flaw. It’s important when creating a world that it sounds and looks like a new world, or the person will be taken out of the experience. When running through an eerie vault, exploring seemingly endless Metro subways, or stalking your way across the wasteland, the sound is perfect. Even the soundtrack is complete with artists from the 1950’s. The only downfall was the voice acting. Ron Perlman returns to narrate the story and he does a good job, as does Liam Neeson and Malcolm McDowell, but the lack of variety in voices is pathetic. Some characters that play a main role in the game are also the voices for lesser people. I was letdown because the first two games in this series had excellent voice acting.

As for the graphics, I was impressed. For a game of this scale, there is a lot of detail and subtleties that add to the depth of this game. The problem occurs when you switch to third person mode. Your character moves awkwardly and fighting is a mess. Easy solution though: stay in first person mode. There were also some graphical glitches (at least in the PS3 version). When I was exploring the outside world, I would sometimes come across an enemy in the distance that was stuck in the ground and would pop free after a few moments. There were also sometimes when I would fall between some rocks and couldn’t jump out. I was forced to reload from my last save and lose any progress I made. These minor dilemmas served more as annoyances rather than something that should deter people from enjoying Fallout 3.

The combat system in Fallout 3 is both fantastic, and incomplete. I’ll explain. After encountering an enemy, you are given a choice. You can attack them head on, guns blazing, or you can enter Vault-Tech Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S). This freezes the action allows you to target specific areas of your foes body.

Fallout 3 VATS system

It comes in handy when some chump shows up with a missile launcher and starts shooting. Go into V.A.T.S. and shoot the gun from his hand, HAAZA! You only can use V.A.T.S. as long as you have AP points to spend (they regenerate when not using V.A.T.S.). This allows you to get off about three or four shots on average before having to use standard combat. The standard first person shooter mechanics seem dated. It is bare bone and much less exciting killing your enemies without using V.A.T.S. This is what comes across as incomplete. V.A.T.S. works very well and adds a lot of strategy to the fighting component of Fallout 3. I mostly used V.A.T.S. and did not spend much time in standard combat so I had fun killing things, and therefore, I think the combat system worked well. I was annoyed that you can’t kill children though. I tried killing this snot-nosed brat, but she wouldn’t die. I understand the lack of morals I display by wanting to kill a child and that a videogame probably won’t allow children to be killed (only original copies of Fallout 1, 2, and Postal come to mind that allow them to be killed), but it completely removed me from the experience. Probably not a legitimate reason for wanting to blow away little Suzy; guess I’m a jerk.

I loved this game, and I am glad it finally came out. I also hope it encourages people to go out and play the originals. I am disappointed in those few flaws but overall I had a great time exploring the wasteland and discovering what events happened since the bombs dropped. The first two Fallouts were original and constructed perfectly. Living up to those expectations would be difficult for anyone. For Bethesda’s first attempt at a Fallout game, they did a wonderful job but there is room for improvement. Tightening up the combat, improving the script, adding more voice actors, and more diverse environments would have made for a classic game.

The song “Looking for the Perfect Beat” flawlessly sums up this album by saying there are many different types of music in the world but some people may not be satisfied with those types so something new must be created. Bambaataa experiments with different electro/synthesizer sounds to create the backbone of each song and ultimately creates a new style of music for the world to hear. This new sound comes across as a combination of funk’s timing, hip-hop’s flow, and electro’s rhythm. Try to imagine the James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”, Public Enemy’s “Power to the People”, and “Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” all coming together. That is the sound Planet Rock produces. It’s fascinating to listen twenty years after Planet Rock was made and being able to hear many of the elements in music today that evolved from this point.

There are no fillers or weak points to be found on Planet Rock (with only seven tracks it would be sad if one was a filler). But a few songs do stick out as being stronger than the others. “Planet Rock”, “Looking for the Perfect Beat”, and “Renegades of Funk” dominate this album and make it a classic. If you think “Renegades of Funk” has a familiar ring to it, that is because Rage Against the Machine covered it back in 2000. It’s such an interesting sound and point of origin that all should experience Planet Rock. Even if you aren’t into hip-hop this could easily appeal to you.

To explain Crush is hard without seeing it, but if you have played Super Paper Mario at any point, the gameplay gimmick is similar. You play the role of Danny, a man suffering from insomnia, and he has been put into a sort of virtual reality world to face his inner demons. Apparently, his inner demons are a series of levels where he has to collect orbs, avoid giant cockroaches, and solve creative, yet at times very frustrating, puzzles. The levels are all 3 dimensional, and you can position the camera above you, in front of you, behind you, or to the sides. This is a typical level in 3D:

This comes into play due to the the fact that at any point while playing, you can “crush” the level down to 2D. When you do this, items in the foreground or background will combine with your current surroundings and open up a way to reach new areas or avoid obstacles and solve various difficult situations. This is that same level as above when crushed into 2D:

At first, the premise is very simple and the levels correspond in kind. However, as you go, the difficulty ramps up with new types of blocks that you can’t “crush” on, timed events that you need to complete or you’ll have to restart the level, more deadly obstacles, and complicated moving platforms.

Part of the beauty of the game is that the levels are just ingenious. I can’t count the number of times I came to an area where I was convinced I could not go any further, yet I didn’t take into account if I swung the camera to my right, crushed to 2D, jumped on a block that was in the background previously, and then uncrushed, I could get to the place I needed to be. This kind of “a-ha!” gameplay happens in nearly every level. It is definitely a game that rewards people with great spatial recognition skills. Conversely, the game is unapologetically difficult at times. There are many levels where you much ascend and make many difficult jumps, and the character’s control is what I would call adequate, but not great by any means. This leads to many a missed jumps, and falling either to your death, or back to the beginning of the level, and you’ll spend another 10 minutes getting back to that same point. Needless to say, this is a game for the patient puzzle solver, not the twitch action gamer.

I have to admire the game’s art direction too. Looking like something out of Tim Burton film, it leaves a definite nice impression in both the in game graphics and the comic book style cutscenes. While I wasn’t wild about Danny’s animation (he looks like a drunk hunchback while staggering around the levels, and his jumping animation is pretty awful), the levels and backgrounds are alive with color and personality. The 3D engine is pretty nice technically too, as the game looks like an above average dark, cartoony PS2 game. And thankfully, the game’s load times aren’t terrible and the crushing and camera rotating abilities are lag free.

As I briefly touched on before, the controls are just okay. The crushing and rotating abilities are fast and responsive, but actually navigating the character can be frustrating at times. In 3D space, it can be hard to make simple jumps across chasms, and the character movement, while responsive, definitely isn’t as crisp as I would like it. That said, after you accept the basic rules of the game and how the controls are going to handle, it isn’t a huge distraction.

The music is suitable dreamy, melancholy stuff that has occasional spastic weirdness in it. It sets a good mood in that you feel like it could be the representation of someone’s disturbed subconscious, but it really isn’t all that catchy aside from the menu theme. The voices aren’t great either in the acting sequences, but they are certainly passable and move the game’s plot along. The plot isn’t anything that interesting either, but considering it could just be “here’s a bunch of levels, get to the end”, some attempt to tie it all together is nice.

As I said, it is a shame this game didn’t get more of a mainstream following, because it’s one of the best games I’ve played for the system to date. If it had shipped with a level creator like it was originally proposed to, there could be almost limitless replay here if you could download other’s puzzles. If they ever make a sequel and address some small issues, it will instantly be a classic. That said, Crush is original, creative, good looking, and very challenging. And that’s more than I can say for most of the games coming out on the market these days. If you own a PSP, you should really give this a try, especially since it is budget priced almost everywhere now.

This Futurama movie is pretty heavy on the funny stuff despite a weaker premise than the last movie, but contains less serious material than the first movie. The movie has about a dozen subplots, but the main overarching plot point is about the “shortage” of dark matter fuel, and how Mom is exploiting the market for her own gain. There’s a bunch of obvious references to the current oil crisis, but probably the best plot in the movie is Bender falling into the role playing world of Dungeons and Dragons and being unable to tell fantasy from reality. While the Planet Express crew fights to stop Mom from stealing a crystal from Farnsworth that would allow her unlimited power indefinitely over the energy supply, Bender ends up going crazy and is put in the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots. Then, just as the movie feels like it is coming to its climax…it turns into Lord of the Rings.

For some reason, Bender sucks the entire universe into his fantasy world of Dungeons and Dragons, and most of the rest of the movie is a LotR spoof. While most of this stuff is funny stuff too, it certainly makes the movie feel more like a bunch of episodes (or random ideas) crammed together to fill out a movie length, rather than being a coherent, complete movie. I guess since they will be broken up to air on TV, it made sense to make it more like that. Regardless, they make good use of the setting, akin to the Anthology of Interest tale that spoofed Wizard of Oz. Fry becomes Frydo, an obvious play on Frodo, and then later he also essentially becomes the role of Gollum (which includes a hilarious take on the Gollum water reflection scene). Farnsworth becomes Great Wizard Greyfarn, Leela is Leegola, Mom is Momon, etc. Then near the end of the abbreviated LotR tale, when Fry fails to destroy the crystal (now a Die of Power that grants random things when rolled), the whole things crumbles back into reality, Mom’s dark matter farm is nullified and everyone goes home without fuel and happy.

In all, it’s kind of a mishmash of weird and funny stuff, but it all works. The movie also tells some more history behind the series, such as why Nibbler was on the planet Leela finds him on (and what happened to the rest of his kind), more of the Professor’s past, and a secret about Mom’s stupidest son. It’s pretty cool how they have managed to tie together a lot of question marks in the series by incorporating them into the plot of the movies. This movie, being based on D&D and LotR, is also steeped in nerdom. This is by far the nerdiest movie, and I loved it. There’s an early scene in a Demolition Derby where they have George Takei from Star Trek in a small scale original Enterprise (with his head jar on top) wrecking into Scott Bakula in an Enterprise-era ship and blaming him for ruining the franchise. Awesome. Then they pretty much recreate the entire end battle of Empire Strikes Back with Farnsworth later in the movie. There’s also tons of other little references to other things throughout. In addition, this movie continues to be tremendous fan service to Futurama diehards, as I think nearly every obscure character has now had screen time or reappeared in some way.

In general, if you like Futurama, you’ll like this. From Bender’s “relaxation therapy” to Mom’s kids masquerading as owl exterminators to the battle at Wipe Castle (an obvious yet strange homage to White Castle and the final battle in The Two Towers), there’s just some really funny stuff in this. The extras are also pretty great, as usual from these DVD’s. I spent an hour watching extras, and there’s still a few things I haven’t gotten through. The great part is that most of it isn’t filler, and the commentaries with the cast are always highly entertaining. Definitely recommend picking this up, it’s good value for the money.

The strongest part of The Force Unleashed is by far the story. Filling in the gap between the movie trilogies, the game unravels the tale of Darth Vader’s apprentice, Starkiller, along with the formation of the Rebel Alliance. The story is filled with twists, mystery, and uncertainty. I won’t go on too much more, as anything else would reveal too much.

Graphically, The Force Unleashed has plenty of ups and downs. At times it can seem majestic, and at other times it seems blocky and flawed. Not much more to say here.

In terms of gameplay, The Force Unleashed starts off strong, giving a taste of the full power of the force in a prologue level where the player takes control of Darth Vader. Once the game goes into full swing, the player takes control of Star Killer, who has only a limited amount of force abilities compared to Vader. As the game progresses, Starkiller gains new abilities and other abilities can be upgraded. Force powers include the expected push, grab, and lightning abilities as well as a saber throw, repulsion, and a multitude of combos. Unfortunately, many of these powers are useless against bosses, and their strength is inconsistent throughout the game. But more on that later…

Combat is fairly standard 3D platformer action. Lightsaber moves combined with force powers can unleash awesome combos unto the enemies. At times the game is way too easy, and at its toughest it’s really more annoying than it is difficult. Some enemies can knock Starkiller down, and recovering takes a few seconds, allowing other enemies to get in a few hits. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so unavoidable at times. Bosses are a mix between standard combat and cinematic action sequences that require quick button presses much like God of War. As I mentioned, bosses are often immune to many of the force powers, and for most of the game my strategy devolved to nothing more than draining my force lighting, getting in some saber hits, and using more lightning when it has recharged. When it comes to standard enemies, the sky is the limit and there is a huge potential for fun with screwing with stormtroopers.

The levels are fun, but can drag on a bit. It’s also disappointing that some of the levels are recylced and revisited later in the game. There are some interesting bits, like exploring the inside of a sarlacc, or battling through the under-construction Death Star, but other levels are more unfamiliar or even drab. Overall, the levels are mostly straightforward, and don’t really require any exploration. There are hidden force cubes that grant ability or experience points, or even saber upgrades, but finding most of these requires very little thought. One of the levels that was most looked forward to is where Starkiller pulls down a Star Destroyer. It starts off awesome enough, but eventually it becomes frustrating as the instructions on screen are somewhat hard to decipher, and even when you do what it says, it doesn’t register sometimes. It’s also puzzling how Starkiller can muster the force strength to perform a feat this amazing, yet there are certain enemies that can never be picked up and tossed around.

The game is mired in these inconsistencies and let downs that really detract from the potential for fun. The game can be difficult at times, but it’s really more in an annoying way than a challenging way. To be honest, I have some regrets about paying full price, but I don’t really have any regrets about playing the game. It’s worth a play through if you’re a Star Wars fan, but I’d suggest it as a rental or when the price drops.

Alien 3: Assembly Cut

I finally took time to watch what is the “complete” version of Alien 3, and this is by far the superior version of the movie. Though this version runs pretty long, it also adds about 45 minutes of new material into the movie that fleshes out what has always been a pretty “eh” movie. I feel like this version gives the rest of the crew of the Sulaco that dies more focus, more characterization of the prisoners (who seemed one dimensional before), an interesting subplot where the alien is caught midway through the movie, and a lot of extra scenes discussing religion and the prisoners embracing it. It’s still a flawed movie that just has fundamental plot decisions that I don’t agree with (killing the previous supporting cast, the smallness of the movie, finishing off Ripley), but this version is the best. It feels a lot more like the first Alien, and likely you will have a slightly better opinion of the movie.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Color me unimpressed. This Friday movie just didn’t have the creative kills and gore and boobs that it should have. My favorite is IV by far, and this was one of the few I’ve never seen. It has a great intro where they reanimate Jason and he tears out a dude’s heart, but most of it goes into meh territory from there. Lots of deaths, but almost no gore and not a lot of creativity. The best part was where he killed the kids in the RV, and even that part was a little tame. That and the lead character Tommy is in jail for half the movie with absolutely inept cops, which hurts the movie because the jail scenes are boring and stereotypical stuff (”You have to believe me, Jason is back!” “Yeah right buddy!”). Overall, it’s watchable, and better than V, but it could have been a lot better.

Mindwarp

This is a low budget b-movie from the early 90’s starring Bruce Campbell. It waivers between unwatchably bad to amazing one liners to head scratching bizarreness. The beginning is a lot like the Matrix (before the Matrix!) in that everyone is living in a dream world, and they connect to it from the base of their neck. One woman gets away from it and into a dystopian future where Bruce Campbell rescues her from some crazy mutants. Then some crazy stuff happens where they are dragged into some seedy underworld that looks like something out of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and then Bruce Campbell pukes bloody leeches into the girl’s face. It was great!

I arrived a little before 9:30 to get the ticket at will call. It’s a lot faster than waiting in line at the ticket booth, trust me. The lines were huge, but separated by every half hour, and if you got a ticket for an earlier time then you could walk up front to get in, which was pretty sweet. I guess if anything it’s better to show up slightly later rather than super early, because there’s another line after the outside entrance line to get in. There were tons of workers all dressed up as zombie security guards with scabs on their faces. Every now and then they would sneak up on someone, because people never watch their backs. There were also a couple special costumed workers including a zombie surgeon, wearing the surgeon’s mask and all, who happened to be the creepiest one there. He’s seriously good, as he had people screaming and staying far away from him the whole time in line.

After getting through the second line (which didn’t seem so bad after a while), the real fun started. I have to mention how cool this building is. It’s been preserved very well over time, and it was awe inspiring at first just to get a look at the outside walls while in line. There’s a lot of history built up in this place, and it’s been well respected. So I’m not going to try and spoil much with the actual “terror behind the walls”. I wasn’t scared at all, and I’m not saying that to sound all macho or whatever. It just never happened. With that said I did jump once, due to something unexpected happening. It actually would end up happening a couple more times, except after the first time it got a bit predictable. Anyway the lack of scares could be contributed to a couple of factors. For one, there’s the element of traveling in groups. If you bring a lot of people to go with you, the workers will do a good job of splitting everyone up into smaller groups. I was in a group of four. Unfortunately, if you’re a fast walker you’ll be able to catch up to the slower and easier to scare folks. It slowly becomes a trial of seeing what just happened to the group in front, and this happened a decent amount. There are different sections of the penitentiary where they stop your group and wait for the ones in front to get farther ahead, but we still found ourselves catching up over time. Also I was in the far back of our group because no one else wanted to be there, and it was actually the safest place to be in my mind. And seriously, watch your back at all times. You see that someone may have jumped out already, but don’t just walk by and assume they’re waiting for someone else to walk up to them. They’ll follow you.

As far as the scenery goes, there were some good rooms to walk through and around. You do get to go upstairs for a brief moment and see the real prison cells, but of course those are blocked off. The acting was pretty good on average, and one of the mental patients that came out of the wall looked like Wolf from American Gladiators. Maybe it was him, after all?. There’s a good amount of themed rooms and all, but my favorite was probably the part that had no place being there. You receive some 3d glasses before this area, and when you walk in, you see a bright and colorful corridor full of 3d art spanning the walls. It’s a lot to take in, for sure, but you still have to pay close attention to the walls, as sure enough things will start jumping out of it. It’s a very cool area, and probably my favorite part of the whole tour. There’s also a well done long and dark hallway that I don’t want to spoil, but I can say that the usage of smoke and strobe lights made it one of the creepiest parts by far. There was also a section where you’re given little flashlights to help guide your way through an extremely dark couple of rooms. It’s a good idea, but it ended up disappointing instead of exciting.

I myself wasn’t too startled by the experience, but I can say that the friends I came with were a bit scared. Other visitors I noticed were extremely terrified, but they were either super young or a bit older. In fact one older woman passed out and was on the ground by the exit, surrounded by paramedics. She turned out to be OK. Just super spooked, I guess. I forgot to mention that when you’re in line they make you sign a quick one page waiver that pretty much takes the blame off of them when you get a heart attack. Well it’s not worded like that at all, but there is a wavier, so make sure you read it before you sign. There was also a museum portion of the prison that was free for that night (no idea if it’s like that on other nights). It’s a small section but it has some extra info on the design and history, which was cool. We all agreed that a daytime tour of the place would be awesome to check out, so maybe I’ll do that some day. I wish I would have seen more of the actual prison but oh well.

So to sum up how I felt when it was all said and done, I’m glad I went. If you guys are thinking about maybe going, I would recommend it. I believe it’s ending soon, possibly through November and that’s it. If you don’t scare easily, you can still appreciate the work they put into trying and the penitentiary is cool enough to see up close. Just don’t forget to reserve the tickets online and early, as this week will easily be the busiest time to go.

Location: A+
Settings: B-
Actors: B
Scares: C+
Value/Entertainment: B+

Final score: B
It’s worth checking out at least once.
Have a good Halloween, everybody!

First, the bad. The gameplay is completely stylus based. To move, fight, and interact with the world requires use of the stylus. It would have been nice, however, to see an option that allowed movement via the D-pad since I don’t care for moving around with the stylus. The environments are rather diverse, but it would have been cool if each land had its own unique situations or layout. However, each environment becomes bland and repetitive. Lands are sparsely populated and contain simple puzzles. The game also provides people with a very linear path to follow which only adds to the repetitive gameplay. Despite this, unveiling the entire map and collecting all rings and chao eggs feels rewarding.

The battle system is similar to the Mario RPG games in that you can perform simple attacks or special moves that requires you to touch the bottom screen in a certain way to execute the maneuver. You can also block enemy moves by using the stylus as directed. It keeps you on your toes and paying close attention to each battle. I grew to love and hate this system. It was fun to constantly be doing something during a fight, but it was annoying if you didn’t correctly carry out the move when trying to heal and the move failed.

The story is pretty solid. Sonic Chronicles begins with Sonic defeating Eggman. Sonic then goes on vacation until he learns that Knuckles has been kidnapped, and the Chaos Emeralds have been stolen. A new enemy has revealed itself, and Sonic must travel to distant lands in order to save the world from invasion. Throughout the game, Sonic recruits series regulars like Shadow, Tails, Amy, and Eggman (that’s right, you get to play as Robotnik). The writing for Sonic Chronicles is excellent. Not only does the dialog keep you enticed, but BioWare also did a great job at referencing past Sonic games. Additionally, there is a codex that lets gamers learn about Sonic’s history. I found myself reading a few of the entries and discovered some facts I didn’t know existed.

Graphically this game is nice. The worlds stand out visually and offer a unique look. The character models and actions are also well done. Nothing spectacular but the game certainly looks nice. On the other hand, the music was certainly a let down. You had the standard Sonic sound effects and noises but I could have played this game with the volume off and had just as good a time.

This was a fairly brief review of a fairly brief game. It took me a little over eighteen hours to beat Sonic Chronicles. There is little challenge to this game and you’ll find yourself using the same tactics to kill normal enemies and bosses alike. I crushed the final boss in a mere three turns and my life never dipped below the ¾ mark. I did have fun playing this game and I would recommend it for Sonic and RPG fans. There is a lot BioWare can improve upon but they have a great foundation to build future games.