Night 1 (and 2) - Dr. No.

Since I recently decided to watch ALL of the Bond films, I figured I'd watch them in (film) chronological order. One of these days, I might try to round up all of the novels and read them in the order they were published ... but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Even though we all know that Casino Royal was the first of 14 James Bond novels, by the series creator Ian Fleming. Dr. No was the first film, even though it was the 6th novel.

I remember seeing Dr. No as a kid ... several times. It was one of several movies we owned.

23 "nights" of bond

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of James Bond in film, MGM has released a complete 22 "official" James Bond films in one spectacular Blu-Ray set.

In celebration of this landmark of modern cinema, I have decided to watch ALL of the Bond films ... in order ... over the next several (ok, many) evenings.

I remember when I was growing up, my parents were in to James Bond movies and some of my earliest memories are seeing Bond movies either in the theaters or at home with my parents.

Many of these films, I have not seen since I was a kid ... some (like 'On Her Magesty's Secret Service', 'From Russia With Love' and 'Live and Let Die') I haven't seen at all.

Stay tuned to this space for my impressions on each film, as I watch them.

Surprise Hit of 2010: Video Games

Earlier, I went on to say that Mass Effect 2 was my favorite game of 2010. This time, I'm going to tell you about a game that came out of left field and completely surprised me.

Eye Pet is equal parts game, virtual pet and augmented reality. For use with the PlayStation Move motion controller and camera, EyePet turns your living room into a neat little playground for your virtual pet.

Overall, I was surprised with the fidelity in the motion control of the Move. I've been using the Wii for the past few years and have been unimpressed with the lack of preciseness in the motion control for the vast majority of the games on that platform. With PlayStation Move, the high-res camera and the glowing orb at the tip of the controller wand appear to make a huge difference.

My 6 year old daughter appears to be the target audience for EyePet as she has been obsessed with playing with it since I cracked it open yesterday. She spends the bulk of the time dressing up her EyePet and changing it's fur color and style. I can't say I object, the virtual pet is adorable, the gameplay is relatively deep, for what it is, and from a pure technological perspective, this game seems to be one of the most "next generation" experiences that can be had.

In all, The biggest praise I can give my PlayStation these days is that with titles like this, I see my PS3 becoming more of a family console now than it had been in the past 4 years I've owned it.

" ... and shine and shine and shine ..."

When I bought my PSP Model 1000 back in 2005, I also bought the game Lumines. Although there were plenty of great games for the PSP. The one I always came back to was Lumines. I know I'm not alone, former EIC of the now defunct Computer Gaming World Jeff Green has gone on the record several times referring to his PSP as the Lumines machine.

Fast forward to 2009 when the PSP go released. The compact, UMD-less successor to the PSP looked great and offered several things that I had wished the classic model PSP had, such as, internal storage and a better form factor.

There was a lot of controversy arround the launch od the PSP go as there still hadn't been announced a method to convert your old UMD games to a format that could be played on the new system (remember, it has no UMD drive). Sony had assured their current install base looking to upgrade to the PSP go that there would be plenty of games available for download via the PlayStation Store, but still no news on how to play all of your old games on the new platform.

So, when my new and shinny PSP go came, I fired up my PS3 to browse the PlayStation Store and much to my dismay ... no Lumines for purchase. Crap!

I checked the new PSP releases every Tuesday on the PlayStation Store and still, no Lumines. I bought several games to play on my PSP go, such as Final Fantasy VII, Hot Shots Golf 2, and a few others. It wasn;t untill several months had gone by when I read that my favorite PSP game is likely not ever coming to the new download-only PSP platform. Ugh.

Then, just the other day, I read that the PSP go had been hacked to allow you to play an ISO image of a UMD game. At last ... the thought of being able to play my favorite PSP game on the PSP go had been realized.

The process itself was surprisingly simple. Although not as elegant as loading a custom firmware as you could on the other PSP models, I was able to download a few programs and a save-file exploit and ... viola ... Lumines on my PSP go.

Now, This post is in no way any support of acts of piracy rather more of an act of civil disobedience as there is really no excuse for Sony not to have the entire PSP library available for download by now.

Best of 2010: TV

My favorite new show of 2010 has to be Mike and Molly on CBS.

The premise of the show is not anything ground breaking. It is a rom-com starring an overweight Chicago Couple. Mike is a cop, Molly is a teacher.

What this show does well is the absolutely hilarious dialog that occurs between a new couple. It is apparent that Mike has never been in a serious relationship before and Molly has some obvious relationship baggage. The dialog seems so genuine and true and as a result, I often find myself laughing out loud.

I also love the banter between Mike and his partner Carl (who is single and lives with his Grandmother) . Like most portrayals of cop / partners, Mike and Carl often bicker like an old married couple. Most of the time Carl is giving Mike really bad relationship advice.

The only real complaint I have in this show is the inclusion of Molly's pot-head sister and slutty mother. It seems to me that these two were thrown in simply to up the raunchiness of the comedy, which, in my opinion, is totally unnecessary. It kind of detracts from the relative cuteness and innocence of the star characters.

Best of 2010: Video Games

I played a lot of good games this past year. In fact, In 2010 I limited myself to 1 new game a month. Coupled with the Amazon Bonus Offers game credit promotion they have been doing all year, I had a pretty good system going.

Let's start off by saying that 2010 was an outstanding year for games. Red Dead Redemption, Halo Reach, Dragon Quest IV, Bayonetta, Darksiders, Limbo, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Epic Mickey ... the list goes on.

(C) 2010 BioWare published by Electronic Arts

Of all of the games I played in 2010, the one that made the biggest impression on me was Mass Effect 2

As a responsible adult, with a Job and three kids (although I only had two at the time I played ME2) my gaming time tends to be significantly reduced to 20 ~ 30 minute blocks after the kids go to bed, making it difficult to get into some of the more epic games. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy X ~ XIII are still waiting for me in my "pile of shame" mostly because I cannot devote the time to invest to get into the game and enjoy it.

Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were a different story for me. It started when I managed to talk my buddy Josh into playing the first Mass Effect at the same time I was so we could talk about it at work as we progressed through the game. I'd also like to point out that he typically doesn't like these types of games. The sad part is that I did not live up to my end of the bargain and got distracted by some other game I don't quite remember at the moment.

Knowing that the stories of the two games were connected, I made sure to complete the first ME before I began ME2. Boy ... am I glad I did.

I did eventually start the original ME well after Josh had finished, by this time ME2 had been released and he had started playing that as soon as it came out. I popped in the game one week-end, when I could afford to stay up late and play a deeper game than the bite-sized downloadable or hand-held games I had been playing at the time, and ... well ... to make a long story short, I was hooked within the first 30 minutes. The next thing I know I'm playing this game for at least a couple of hours a night, staying up much later than I should have been to be considered effective at work the next day and so on.

The first Mass Effect had a lot going for it. The story was fantastic (even if it borrowed heavily from established Sci-Fi franchises) The graphics were good and the pacing was great. The hours I spent playing seemed to fly by. I had also managed to order my copy of ME2 so that it arrived the day before I finished the first game.

The improvements from the first to the second installment were significant,  better sound, better graphics, more streamlined gameplay ... they managed to turn this game up to eleven. This game is so much better than the first, there is absolutely no way I can go back to play the first one again, which is a shame, because there were some gameplay scenarios that I would enjoy seeing played out another way ... but more on that later.



See More Crazy Mass Effect 2 Stats and What They're Used For Various at IGN.com

As it turns out I was one of the 20% that played Mass Effect 2 the right way. I imported my Fem Shep from the first game and sat back and enjoyed the ride. As I said before, I typically don't have the time to play a 40+ hour game given my current lifestyle and I managed to play 2 of them back-to back over the course of about 6 weeks. That speaks volumes about how well these games were made and how awesome the experience I had with both of them was.

ME2 was an amazing experience. What made it interesting for me was the choices that you could make in the first game that carried over to the second game. I am so looking forward to ME3 so I can see the what comes of the decisions I've made during both games.

Best of 2010: Movies

There were a lot of great movies this year. It was a tough decision, but over all I'll have to say that the best movie I saw this year was Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

This movie fired on all cylinders for me. Great visuals, Excellent sound effects and music, the acting was great. Not only did I believe that these kids were actually Canadian hipsters, but the new Superman, Brandon Routh as a pretty boy vegan douche bag and an uncredited Thomas Jayne as one of the Vegan Police actually stole the show for me. Most of all, I loved the little things littered through the movie such as the pop and gaming culture references.




I had not read the 6-part graphic novel series when I saw the movie, but I went out an bought all 6 almost immediately afterward.

I have to say that Edgar Wright did an amazing job of adapting the source material. Brian Lee O'Malley  must be extremely proud.

I especially like how the movie handled the ending, because at the time the movie was filming, the conclusion to he books had not been written yet.

In all, This is one of those movies that I see myself watching over and over again much like 'A New Hope' and 'Back To The Future'. Not bad company to be in, in my opinion.

I did also see Inception this year. don't get me wrong, I loved that movie too, but it lacks the 'instant classic' status that this movie does for people that grew up during my generation.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should.