Heavy Rain Update

I finished Heavy Rain about two days after I started playing it. Not a very long game at all. From what I've been seeing around the web, it is intended to be played several times since the outcome of the game can vary slightly depending on what choices you make throughout the game and who lives, who dies. There is a huge list of trophies that you can obtain from doing these elaborate sequences of movements accurately. Such as the "Baby Master" trophy (shown in the video below) in which you gain a trophy for changing a diaper, feeding a bottle and burping a baby.

As I wrote in my previous post, the control system was what really drew me to the game. I wouldn't doubt it if we see similar things in the future in other titles. It really brings you into the game making you feel more connected.
I didn't have any other glitches pop up in about the last half of the game. There were some instances where you would pop out of an animated mini-cut scene only to get stuck where you couldn't move or some things wouldn't render completely. Restarting the game would resolve it. Maybe they'll fix some of these things in an update at some point.
The graphics were a stunning. As you work through the game you unlock some videos a few that deal with the making of the game. They spent a lot of time capturing expression and facial detail.



Overall, Heavy Rain was an enjoyable experience. I'm very tempted to go back through it again to try to get more trophies and see what other paths I can follow.....but I've been a little distracted working on a huge complicated project for work with a very short deadline (which also explains the tardiness of this post).
I picked up God of War III. Actually, I pre-ordered it from Amazon so that I wouldn't have to scramble to try to find a copy locally. Plus I could choose a gift wrap option (my present wrapping skills suck) as this was more a gift for Meredith than it was for me.
God of War III is the 3rd installment of a game that Meredith and I have really enjoyed playing. It's a hack 'n slash dungeon crawler with some amazing animation and a variety of weapons, magic and special moves. Some really cool animated final kills that would put Mortal Kombat to shame.
Figured Meredith would wear the buttons out on the controllers so I bought her a new one in her favorite color.

Heavy Rain

I picked up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3 the other day. It's kind of mix between Memento, Seven, The Cell, Minority Report, Zodiac and Thirteenth Floor. The graphics are phenomenal. The developers took a lot of time tweaking the faces of the characters making them look extremely realistic.
The gameplay is more like following a "choose your own adventure" graphic novel. You follow several different characters as each is trying to solve a bit of the mystery. You switch between characters as the story moves from chapter to chapter.
In some cases, two characters may be in the same scene and you may pick up control of one character as the first leaves the scene. Choices and actions you make throughout the game alter the outcome in subtle ways.

Even more fascinating to me than the graphics was the control system. I'd read an article in Wired magazine discussing this revolutionary new context sensitive control system. So when presented with different choices and actions, images of the button action appears. So in contrast to traditional control systems where each button is assigned to a specific action, there are endless possibilities as that same button may do a completely different thing faced with a different obstacle.
When conversing with other characters you have different topics or ways in which to say things (persistent, sympathy, etc...) illustrated by a button symbol and keyword that floats around your head. This allows you to have an influence on how the scene plays out.
Timing is critical, if you neglect to hit a button fast enough (or slow enough) there is a consequence. Sometimes you are also required to press and hold down a series of buttons, sometimes making for an interesting game of finger twister as you attempt to hold down a number of buttons on the controller. 
It also makes use of the accelerometer in the controller, allowing you to steer vehicles, push and slide objects, all by tilting and moving the controller up, down, left , right.
Things aren't all rosy though. Several times there have been glitches in the game that wouldn't allow the character to move until restarted the game. Realtime rendering glitches, like background characters gliding along the ground instead of walking. Even the very opening intro animation had the character floating 8 inches off the bed frame because the mattress didn't render. 
I've just started working through the game and overall, with the exception of the random glitches, has been very immersive and enjoyable. Later I'll post a follow up to this post with some further thoughts as I get farther into the story.
Here's a clip of actual Heavy Rain gameplay.

My Kindle Experience

Never fails that when I'm about to go on a trip I'm nearing the end of one book and end up having to pack at least one other book in my carry on to make sure I don't get stuck in an airport with nothing to read.
By the end of the trip I'm lugging around some dead weight from the book(s) I've finished.
The Amazon Kindle looked like a great solution to this problem. I've been interested in the Kindle since they first came out a few years ago. The first generation seemed a little pricey and a little clunky to me so I resisted buying one (not to mention they were sold out for quite a while as well).
The 2nd generation came out and it was more refined, thinner and all around just looked nice. I kept looking at them and thinking "should I?" I'm very much in love with the tactile feeling that a real book can give you. The smell of the ink on the page, the texture of the paper and so on. Could I give it up for a thin piece of electronics?
When faced with the potential of going on a business trip for a few days back in August I thought it would be the perfect opportunity. I ordered a 2nd gen Kindle which arrived a few days later. I unpacked it and turned it on to read a personalized welcome letter. How thoughtful. I was struck by how light the little thing was. Next I noticed that my natural resting position for my thumb was just about right over the "next page" button. I thumbed through the user's guide and was amazed at the clarity of the text on the page, even in bright sunlight when I'm sitting on the back patio.
I ordered a couple of Kindle "books" next some I paid for and some that Amazon was more less giving away (can you buy something for $0.00?). I'd have to admit that it took me a day or so to really get used to reading on the Kindle. There is a bit of an automatic impulse to turn a page the old fashion way rather than pressing a button. After a while it became second nature.
Furthermore, I'm not sure they even thought of this, but I even noticed that when lying in bed reading that because of the space taken up by the keyboard at the bottom of the unit that it positions the screen right at a comfortable spot in front of you. One of the things that always bugged me about reading in bed was that you had to hold the book up to read the lower part of the page. Might not seem a big deal...but when you are reading something like Robert Jordan's "The Lord of Chaos" weighing in at over 1000 pages in paperback...it takes it toll on you.
I even noticed that with "next page" buttons on both sides of the device you can read on you side quite comfortably, switching hands whenever on gets tired.
Anyway, I've had my Kindle for several months now. I've read a handful of books on it and I'd have to say I'm quite addicted to it now. I love being able to take one device with me that has enough to keep me occupied if I get stuck in a Denver airport in a snowstorm.

MEAT

Looks like Mark finally got around to uploading his strangely bizarre but all around quirky comedy "MEAT" to YouTube. Which is a film about an interesting life lesson of how it feels to be on the other side of things. And it's a great opportunity to see the great David Blackwell reprise his role as a store clerk.
Meredith and I worked on this short film a few years ago and it was a real blast. Meredith doing makeup and me doing some camera work. Though her work is far better than mine, I'd have to admit.
Mark is one of those guys with a great eye for composition and detail and I always enjoy working with him on projects. Films are a lot more fun when you work with people you really like and respect.
Anyway, here's "MEAT"

New Tutorial: How to Use the New YouTube Channels

YouTube just rolled out a re-design of their channel pages. It's radically different from the old channel design, so the recent site wide roll out has generated a lot of usage questions.
I've been using the "beta" for almost a year and thought I'd scratch up a little tutorial on them now they they have rolled out to everyone.
Most everything on the new channel design can be changed without leaving the channel now. No need to go to different places around in your account settings to change various aspects of the channel like you did with the old design.

Childhood

I just finished watching Poltergeist for the second time in over 25 years. Myself and Poltergeist have a long history. When I was young dad was stationed in Hessich Oldendorf, Germany It was the 80's, dawn of the VHS tape. There was some entrepreneurial folks stationed there that took it upon themselves to start their own video rental shops straight out of there military supplied housing. I can remember that membership cost a couple of donated movies on VHS tapes. Mom donated some rather innocent titles like Swiss Family Robinson and Elephant Man (before I knew who David Lynch was).
Dad was the base commander and along with mom were always being called way for some official function or some boring ball with the local German townsfolk leaving my brother and I with the sitters.
Rob rented Poltergeist one night when mom & dad were away. We had this great VHS player set up in the living room. It had a "remote" control that was a little play/rewind/fast forward/pause control tethered by a cord to the VHS deck. It was cutting edge back them believe me...
So Rob gets this movie and watches it. In it there is a scene where one of the characters has a pretty traumatic experience in which he sees a small cut on his face, starts to peel it and eventually peels most of his face off. Being maybe all of 8 or 9 years old at the time this freaks the crap out of me. Seeing my traumatic reaction to this what is an older brother to do but rewind the thing a dozen times.
I had nightmares for weeks after that. And not just nightmares but well...daymares? I'd see this poor wretch peel his face off in my mind throughout the day sometimes.
This more less started my obsession with special effects make up. One day perusing the base exchange's book store I stumble across Fangoria Magazine. I am amazed to see that it shows make up effects from all sorts of movies and gives some detailed explanations about how it is all done. Some strange therapy, but I come to the realization that it is all fake! And that there is some real art in making the unbelievable believable.
Flash forward 25+ years. I've avoided Poltergeist like the plague for all the years. That face peeling scene still stuck in my mind after all these years. Creeping into my nightmares even though I know it is not real. I see the movie sitting on the shelves in glorious Blu-Ray at my local Best Buy. I finally decided to face my fears and watch the darn thing. I get it home, wait until it is nice and dark outside and pop the disc in.
My oh my, how times have changed. First off I don't remember jack about this movie. The first quarter of the movie I don't even remember. Second...were we really that badly dressed in the 80's? I remember the kitchen chair repositioning themselves... I remember the paranormal crew getting there. Then the guy that decides in the middle of the night to look through the fridge only to find a maggot ridden chicken drumstick and a steak that vomits itself up. Poor chap goes straight to the bathroom to barf a bit. Then it dawns on me that this is the moment I've been waiting for. After 25 years I can finally face my fear of this face peeling.
So the poor chap enters the bathroom and vomits a few times...looks up in the mirror and discovers this small cut on his face and proceeds to peel his face off... Only now I can dissect the scene... Guy enters the bathroom, vomits a bit, cut to the sink, back to the mirror.... holy crap! that appliance looks like sh!t! Suddenly the left half of his face has turn into really poor looking foam latex. You can tell when he presses up on the gag a bit to ooze the blood out the little "wound". Then cut to the sink again. Then back to the mirror to a horribly bad looking "head" with too hands in front of it ripping apart some poorly done foam latex to reveal a stock skeleton skull.
At this point I'm dumb founded by the fact that I was so traumatized by such a crappy gag from so many years ago. My how times have changed. Now I think to myself, Meredith could of done a heck of a lot better job and would have made it much more believable.
I have no idea what I was scared of all those years ago.

Unfortunately, the same experience hasn't been able to cure my fear of creepy clowns...

My Past in Shreds

I've spent the last couple of days shredding my life. No I haven't fallen into a bout of depression or anything. I finally decided to clean up my front bedroom/computer room. I can only stand mess for so long, before I get sick of it and make the time to clean it up.
This front room has been accumulating junk and stacks of old bills and receipts for the past several years. Got bad enough that I could hardly walk into the room, couldn't close the closet door, couldn't see the six foot long couch because it was stacked a foot high with papers.
I'm a bit of a pack rat by genetics. My parents were never very good about throwing things out and the same mentality seems to be in my blood. Never know when you might need this or that. Better keep it 'cause it might come in handy later... and a thousand other excuses...all adds up to a big pile of junk that I can't find anything in even if I did need it.
I finally decided that I could really part with that electric bill from 1998 and the cell phone bill from 2002. Went to Office Depot, bought a few bankers boxes and a large paper shredder and set about to attacking the mess.
It's funny how the littlest things mark times in your life both good and bad. I had a couple of big boxes of stuff from my days in support, old ISA sound cards, 10 base-2 BNC network cards, boxes of 3.5" floppy disks (Win95 on floppy anyone?) and a bunch of other junk that is obsolete.
Digging deeper I find artifacts from my days in college, even deeper I find high school year books. Even found old cassette tapes with "mixes" I'd made as a young skateboarding kid.
I pitched a lot of the junk but pulled out a lot of the stuff that had more meaning like a couple of audio tapes when a couple of my friends and I tried to make a punk band in the basement, photographs and yearbooks. Stuff that has real sentimental value and is irreplaceable.
Then I tried to unearth the couch. Literally buried under a foot deep of old bills and paper is a old brown hide-a-bed couch. Decided to filter out all the bank statements, mortgage statements, and other financial documents and file them away in the bankers boxes all neatly organized. Just in case I get audited I suppose. I feed the rest to the shredder.
Into the shredder go old credit card statements, electric and phone bills...tons of shopping receipts and other crap that doesn't serve a purpose any more. Looking through all these papers stirs up more memories. I can mark the highs and lows through my life just my following my paper trail. Feed it all to the shredder. My past in shreds.
This year marks the first year of my adult life that I'm finally debt free. I've paid off my mortgage and credit cards. My vehicle has been paid off for years. I'm finally saving some money. There is something liberating and refreshing about shredding a bunch of old credit card statements and "payment overdue" notices. Feel a bit like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. Starting new. Re-born.