Rating:
Author: Infinity Ward, Activision
Price: $49.99
Release Date: November 1st, 2007
Tags: activision, call of duty 4, infinity ward, pc, video games

So I recently found out that SEB has a few fans at Activision as I was contacted a few weeks back and asked if I would like to receive a review copy of Call of Duty 4 of my very own for the low, low cost of writing a review for it. Considering that I was likely to write a review at some point anyway I naturally jumped at the chance. Especially when taking into account that I wasn’t sure if it would be a must-buy or not. You see, I loved Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 immensely, but I was more than a little nervous about Call of Duty 4 because of the move away from the World War II setting to modern day. Yeah I know a lot of people are sick to death of WWII as a game setting, but I’m not one of those people. To me there’s no end to the amount of joy blasting a few hundred Nazi’s away can bring after a long day at the office. Still, being a long time fan, I kept up with the previews on the game and watched all the amazing trailers and wondered if the game would live up not only to the hype, but the love I had for its predecessors. I’m happy to say that it does.

Single Player

As the subtitle in the name implies, the folks at Infinity Ward have moved the setting of the game up to the modern day with all the trappings that current warfare brings with it such as grenade launchers and night vision goggles. The single player story takes place in the middle east and parts of Russia with a hostile Arab leader staging a coup and threatening everyone else in the world with a bunch of stolen nukes he got from some Russian guy. Or something to that effect. I have to admit that I didn’t pay that much attention to the storyline because I was too busy trying to stay alive and gawking at the scenery. The upshot of it all is that some bad terrorist guy has taken over some middle eastern country with the help of some bad Russian guys which requires you to go and eliminate said bad guys to make the world safe for democracy. During the course of the game you’ll trade off between various characters in both the U.S. Marines and the British S.A.S. units as they engage in various missions to track down the newly self-appointed dictator. Unlike previous CoD games, the story line in this one is continuous from start to end with you jumping back and forth between the various characters to see it unfold from a number of different perspectives. The story itself isn’t anything particularly innovative or unique, as is probably apparent from the fact that I don’t remember most of the details, but it serves the purpose well and provides for a realistic setting for the game.

The game play itself, however, is awesome. Not much has really changed since CoD2 in terms of the mechanics, but the experience has been ramped up several fold over the previous titles. If you’ve played any of the previous games you should have little trouble jumping right into CoD4’s very intense single player experience.  Part of that intensity is thanks to the new graphics engine CoD4 sports which is full of detail, allows for tons of opponents and allies to be on screen at once, and looks absolutely gorgeous. Or at least as gorgeous as desert villages and decaying Russian cities can look. My current gaming rig is old enough that the game turned off most of the advanced options such as shadows and some of the lighting effects and ran the game at a lowly 800x600 resolution and even toned down as much as it was it still looked and played amazingly well. I can’t begin to imagine how drop dead gorgeous the game would be on a high-end gaming rig which I’ll get around to buying once I win the lotto or become famous on YouTube or something. The folks at Infinity Ward spent quite a bit of time on research to make for as accurate an experience as you can have without getting away from it being a game and it has paid off well. I’m no military expert, but there wasn’t anything in the way of actions on the part of the characters or the scenarios that didn’t seem authentic enough.

Not to say that there aren’t any changes to game mechanics as there are a few that are quite significant. For example, walls are no longer bullet sponges able to soak up an endless parade of lead with no noticeable effect and giving the enemy (and yourself for that matter) plenty of protection. Depending on the type of material the wall is made out of and the type of bullet hitting it it’s quite possible for bullets to penetrate them and do damage to whomever is standing behind them. The amount of damage is reduced according to the type of wall, but you can’t rely on ducking into a doorway to keep you safe from the hail of gunfire you’re running from any longer. Running is also a new addition as they’ve added a sprint ability allowing you to double time it for short periods. I don’t recall the previous games having that option so I believe it’s new. Also new to the mix are dogs that will chase your ass down and rip out your throat before you can say “Fido” if you’re not careful. These three things bring new complexity to the experience and make it that much more enjoyable.

The one thing about the single player that was surprising was how short it was. I managed to make my way through it all in just a couple of nights of moderate playing and I have to admit that that was a tad bit disappointing. It appears the folks at IW realized it was a bit short too as they’ve tossed in a couple of things to make replaying it a little more attractive. First there’s 30 collectible laptops spread throughout each level that you can collect to unlock some hidden feature. On my first run through I managed to find 15 of them so I don’t know yet what it unlocks, but it’ll get me to go back and play the single player again to find out. Then, once you’ve finished the single player once, it unlocks an Arcade and a Challenge mode. The former allows you to play through any single level you want to with a limited number of lives and a scoring system as though it were an actual arcade game and the latter times your run through the entire single player game so you can try to beat your best time through. These two options combined with the ability to play at harder difficulty levels should help to stretch out the single player experience to a small degree, but it’s still surprisingly short compared to the previous games.

Did I mention how good looking this game is? Because at times it can be creepy-realistic. Of particular note is the mission that takes place inside an attack helicopter at night that looks startlingly like real footage from the Iraq war. You provide air support to some ground troops moving into a village and can switch back and forth between several very large and very lethal guns as you try to take out the enemy while not hitting your own troops (whom are wearing IR strobes as their only identifier) and while avoiding damaging a church because that would be, well, wrong I suppose. Didn’t stop me from taking a few potshots at it, but all that did was end the mission instantly. The entire thing is presented in a black and white simulation of the infrared displays used in actual attack choppers and makes for some very believable moments. The same effect happens whenever you switch on your night vision goggles as the sudden reduction in detail emphasizes the motion capture of the characters making them seem even more real. The fact that you can see the lasers from everyone’s laser sights with the NV goggles helps to make it even more intense. Sound is also well done in this game with every gun making the appropriate noises as you’d expect, but also with the thud of bullets hitting dirt and wood and cement along with all the yelling that takes place in a real battle. The sound design alone is worthy of an award or two for giving you a few damn-near-pissed-myself moments. Again a particular stand out is the radio chatter that takes place during the attack helicopter sequence which sounds like it could’ve been taken right from a FOX News report.

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Rating:
Price: $9.99
Release Date: November 23, 2004
Tags: blizzard, pc, video games, world of warcraft

I’ve had a long-standing love/hate relationship with that genre of gaming known as the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). On the one hand I love the idea of taking the classic pastime of Pen and Paper RPGs and translating them into a video game that can be enjoyed by hundreds or thousands of players all over the world at the same time. On the other hand I’ve found that just about every MMORPG becomes dreadfully boring after a few months of play.

I was there when Ultima Online was released and I’ve played almost every MMORPG that’s been released since either as a beta-tester or after buying the game when it was released. This includes some of the big names like Evequest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ashron’s Call (1 and 2), and City of Heroes. Each one has managed to improve on what came before it, but most of them still managed to fall down in the same areas and I ended up abandoning the game well before ever hitting the maximum level possible. With EQ I never got a character past level 20 even after returning to the game several times when new expansions were released. With Dark Age of Camelot I got one character up to level 36 before giving up. The games just failed to hold my interest.

So it’s no small statement to say that World of Warcraft has managed to fix a lot of the problems that I have with MMORPGs and the proof of this is in the fact that my primary character, a Dwarf Hunter named Balfour, is currently level 55 – a mere five levels from the game’s cap of 60. Not only am I definitely going to make it to the maximum level possible, but I’ll probably do it again with another character or two as I already have a Night Elf Druid named Sanctus at level 20.

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Rating:
Author: Bruce Campbell
Price: $10.17
Release Date: August 24, 2002
Tags: autobiography, books, bruce campbell

If Chins Could Kill is the autobiography of one of my favorite actors, Bruce Campbell, who’s one of those actors who never seem to rise above having a cult following. Mention his name to most folks and you’re likely to get a perplexed look followed by, “Bruce who?”

“Campbell, dammit! Bruce Friggin’ Campbell! You know, Ash? From the Evil Dead movies? How about his stint as Brisco County Jr.? OK, how about Autolycus from Xena: Warrior Princess?? No?? WTF, dude??

That’s OK. Just means that those of us who do know of him and count ourselves as fans can enjoy him all to ourselves, you philistines!”

Anyway, this book, as I said, is his autobiography and it chronicles his rise to, well, cult-stardom from his humble beginnings right here in Michigan all the way up through his time touring around promoting If Chins Could Kill. How is that possible you ask? This is a second printing of the book and he added a bit on the end about the tour.

If you’re a fan, and especially if you’re only a casual fan, then you’ll want to pick up this book. Watching interviews with Bruce in the past I’ve always been struck with how he comes across as your pretty regular Joe who enjoys the fact that he’s never had to go out and get a “real” job, so to speak, and that same tone comes across in his autobiography. Bruce is the definition of the “working actor” in that he’s not so much interested in becoming a big box office name (much to the frustration of his agent) as much as making some pretty cool movies and TV shows. In addition to acting he’s taken turns as producer, director, and whatever-the-hell-needs-to-be-done guy.

As it turns out, this book will be worthwhile to fans of Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi, Rob Tapert, the Cohen Brothers, and any of a number of other people that Bruce made the trek out to Hollywood with because it’s really the story about how all of them got their careers underway. Bruce, Sam, Ted, and Rob have worked as a team on all manner of projects ever since the first Evil Dead film with Sam turning into a director with considerable clout after helming two record breaking film adaptations of Spider-Man. By and large they still work as a team even now that Sam’s a big shot director and there’s hardly a Sam Raimi film made that Bruce hasn’t done at least a cameo in. Ted Raimi also shows up in just about every project any of them have worked on. As a whole they brought a little bit of Michigan to Hollywood and they have a very Midwestern way of getting things done. Definitely a worthwhile read.

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Rating:
Price: $17.99
Release Date: October 26, 2006
Tags: first person shooters, half-life 2, valve, video games

To say that I was looking forward to the release of Half-Life 2 is a major understatement. The original Half-Life was the FPS that finally made me a fan of this type of game. I had played the DOOMs and Quakes and Duke Nukems that had come previously, but none of them sank their claws into me the way that Half-Life did when it was released. Everything else up to that point had been pretty light on story beyond what was mentioned in the manual and the game play consisted largely of if-it-moves-then-shoot-it until you find the switch or key card that unlocks the next level. Half-Life, however, felt like you were right smack dab in the middle of a movie. Sure there were plenty of enemies that mindlessly came right at you like in the previous games, but that’s what made the marines you encounter about halfway through the game such a big surprise. Likewise the multiplayer aspect of the game was also the first I really liked mainly because of the option of playing team deathmatch and then later the mods such as Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike.

The sequel had big shoes to fill; especially after taking 6 years to come along. Valve didn’t even announce it until they felt they were within a year of releasing it and the hype that flew up around it seemed like it would be impossible to live up to. Then the source code theft happened and the game was delayed another year while games such as DOOM 3, Unreal 2004, and Far Cry hit the shelves and left gamers wondering if perhaps HL2 might end up not being quite so spectacular once it finally saw the light of day. I’m happy to report that those doubts were unfounded as Half-Life 2 was everything they had promised and more.

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Rating:
Author: Hal Holbrook, Paul Bogart
Price: $26.99
Release Date: November 30, 1999
Tags: dvd, hal holbrook, mark twain

I regard Mark Twain as one of my personal heroes mainly due to the many amazing talks and essays he penned throughout his career in addition to the novels he’s most famous for. A lot of my views on life, people, and what it means to be a good man have been influenced by Twain’s writings. He’s definitely someone I’d travel back in time for the opportunity to meet and chat with if it were possible, and with this DVD it kind of is possible.

Actor Hal Holbrook has been portraying Mark Twain since his college days taking his show on the road at the age of 29 and then continuing to perform the show throughout a long and busy career in both film and TV. At one point he even performed for President Eisenhower and he still tours the country performing his one man show as Twain to this day.

This DVD was particularly interesting to me for several reasons: First, I had never seen Hal Holbrook’s show in its entirety, though I’ve long known that it’s probably what he’s best known for. Second, this particular CBS special was performed and recorded a mere five months before I was born in 1967 so watching it was, as I said, kind of like going back in time in more ways than one. Third, I’ve long heard of how convincing Holbrook is in his portrayal of Twain due to his years of study and research on what Twain was like and what he wrote. Indeed, watching this DVD it was very easy to forget that the man I was watching was not Twain himself and the illusion was only broken during the occasional extreme closeups where you could recognize Holbrook’s face underneath the makeup. Holbrook is said to have memorized upwards of 14 hours of Twain’s original writings and the show he puts on consists entirely of Twain’s words, though Holbrook modifies his selections based on the times and the issues of the day making each show seem different. One of the more amazing things about this DVD is the fact that everything in it holds up well 37 years later and still feels as relevant and insightful today as it probably did back in 1967, or back when Twain originally wrote the words himself.

The quality of the recording does vary throughout the show, but considering the age and the media of the time period it’s been cleaned up remarkably well. The audio can get a little fuzzy in some segments, but overall it’s probably better than should be expected all things considered. The DVD doesn’t have much in the way of extras and launches straight into the show without pausing at a menu. The only extras included are a small text-only bio on Hal Holbrook and a list of all the awards he’s received over the years for his portrayal of Twain. It would have been nice to see more supplemental material. Perhaps something involving Hal speaking on his many years of performing as Twain could have been done.

Still, the show itself is amazing and is a must see for any fan of Mark Twain who wonders what it might have been like to see him during his time touring the country as an orator. The next time Holbrook brings his act to town I’m going to have to make arrangements to see it.

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Rating:
Author: Aoi Tada, Gara Takashima, Norio Wakamoto, Miki Nagasawa, Tsutomu Tareki, Shinichirô Watanabe
Price: $14.99
Release Date: June 24, 2003
Tags: anime, dvd, movie, sci-fi

I so wanted to see this in the theater when it came through the Detroit area, but never managed to make it out to Royal Oak to the one single friggin’ art house that was showing it. When I saw the DVD at the local Best Buy I snatched it up with all the speed and desperate grace of a crack junkie who’s not had a fix in almost two weeks. I loved the TV series. CB is probably my all-time favorite anime series.

For those of you who are uninitiated, Cowboy Bebop is an anime series that follows the exploits of a crew of space-faring bounty hunters in a future where mankind has colonized the solar system and Earth is little more than a garbage dump. Each of the characters has a past that they’ve never fully gotten away from and the series moves between silly comedy and serious drama with a fluid grace few stories are able to achieve. Even folks who aren’t big anime fans tend to like this series and the English dub, if you’re the sort that doesn’t like subtitles, is probably one of the best dubs you could hope for.

Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven’s Door takes place somewhere along the time line of the TV series for reasons that are obvious to anyone who has seen the entire series. It has the crew of the Bebop coming up against a bio-terrorist with an unusual motive on Mars during a Halloween festival. The story is good, the pacing fast and the animation simply stunning at times. If you’re already a fan then you’ll love this movie. If you haven’t already seen the TV series you could still probably get into the movie without too much trouble though the behavior of characters like Ed might seem a bit difficult to fathom. OK, even if you’ve seen the series the behavior of Ed is difficult to fathom. She’s just cool. At any rate this is a worthwhile flick that is a must-buy for any fans of the original series.

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