Saw the new Bond movie…my opinions.
It’s gotten a ho-hum reception from most of the people I’ve talked to personally…but I’m going to say that I really enjoyed it.
The biggest complaint I’ve heard is that its devoid of gadgets. This is true, I can’t recall the use of a single “gadget” in the entire film. Casino Royale was much the same though. It had a couple, but they were very few and far between. In a way, the move away from the gadgetry has sort of brought Bond full circle. Watch Dr. No, the first film, and you may be surprised to see none there as well. In fact it wasn’t until the fourth film Goldfinger that Q’s handywork was really in the spotlight. So I guess as a bigger Bond nerd than most, I’m actually able to appreciate the lack of gimmicky props as “getting back to the roots of Bond”.
I think that these last two films have really done a great job of defining James Bond as a character for the duration of Daniel Craig’s run. Casino Royale set the stage last time for a deep look into Bond’s character in Quantum of Solace. Not since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service have we seen so much of the emotional side of 007. So many of the other films portray him as a cold, calm, and confident man who won’t hesitate to do what it takes to accomplish the mission. Now we finally get to see past that exterior and see a man that also feels pain, compassion, and loss. Bond is certianly a more complex character this time around and in my opinion, that makes him more interesting.
This is no sappy story though. There’s lots of action to be had. Probably 80% of the movie is almost non stop, only slowing down once in a while to let you catch your breath, and then it throws you back on the run. There’s some great scenes as Felix Leiter is somewhat reintroduced as something other than Bond’s concierge. But for all of the great improvements in character identity, I felt as if ‘M’ took a step backwards. Spending most of the time looking like a confused puppy dog. That and her nickname kept driving me crazy throughout the entire film.
All in all, a great film. One of the better ones. While it’s quite different than most of the films of the past 30 years, I think its heart and soul are truly Bond and continues a chapter that is a refreshing and takes the series in a much needed direction. I can’t wait for the next one!
It’s been moved.
If you’re wondering where the missing post went. I didn’t delete it. I just had to move it for…uh…security reasons. I’ll put it back at a later date. That’s all I can say about that. Oh the intrigue!
In the spotlight!
It’s not much. But my car is featured on the front page of Oldspower.com this week! Little things like that help make all the work I put into it worth it.
Been busy.
I know I’ve been absent from posting for a while. But it’s been busy around here lately. At least it seems like it has. This last weekend Andrea’s niece and nephew came up. I guess you could call it babysitting, but I honestly had a good time. We’re doing our part on being a bad influence. Her niece was supposed to be grounded from the TV, but we forced her to play Wii Sports all weekend. Took a lot of convincing, let me tell ya. And her nephew just ran around playing with hotwheels cars all weekend. A lot less screaming than I expected.
This week has been somewhat nerve wracking at work. Everybody is nervous because there’s rumors of paycuts. Though I haven’t actually heard anything substative on that. But mosty everyone griping that Smokey Dan needs to hit the road before anybody takes a paycut around there. And I whole heartedly agree. It’s not that I don’t like the guy. He really is a decent guy a heart, and I don’t wish anybody to be out of work. But the man is truly incompetent. He creates about as much work for everyone else as he gets done. It would rub a lot of people the wrong way if they had to make a sacrifice to save his job. Like I say, I hope it’s all rumors, but if there is any truth to them, I hope the people in charge remember that this is a business…not a charity.
Got a little bit of work done on the car yesterday at lunch. It was idling a little rough the other night, so I decided to put a new distributor cap and rotor on. The parts were cheap, and who knows when it was last done. I pulled the old ones off and they didn’t look too terrible. A little corrosion, but they’d obviously been replaced sometime in the last 200,000 miles. But I went ahead and put the new parts on anyway. Seems to run a smidge smoother, but I think the main problem is the carburetor. So I bought an old one and I’m gonna try my hand at rebuilding it. Hopefully after that it’s just like new, and I’m back up to getting 24 MPG on the hiway like I did when I first bought the thing! It just kinda sucks working on the car now that it’s cold and dark by the time I get off work.
Outside of that, I’ve found myself on the computer less. I’ve been playing a lot of the game I’m doing for my next N64 re-review. I’ve probably already spend about 4 hours playing it, and I think I might go ahead and try to beat the game again before I write the review. Some of these games it’s really hard to get into now, just beacuse they’re dated, or I have already played them to death. But the fact I’ve spent so much time on this game in the last week, it truly a testament to how great it is, and how well it stands the test of time. Look for the review closer to Thanksgiving.
11.11.08A look back: Top Gear Overdrive
There was certainly no shortage of racing games on the Nintendo 64. While this one probably seemed just like one of many to everyone else, I had actually been anticipating it for quite some time. As a big fan of its predecessor Top Gear Rally, I was anxious for an update. In reality Top Gear Overdrive turned out to be a completely different name, sharing very little with the one that came before it. It was a mixed bag, but a decent game in its own right.
This was another of many games that I was at the store early to pick up on day one. The pre-release impressions of the game on IGN64.com were favorable. Excellent graphics, unlockables, and a much anticipated “hi-res” mode. Cars were more detailed than any other game on the N64 up to that point. They featured a “glossy” look to them. While the reflections on the paint and glass weren’t true reflections of the surroundings, they worked well enough to really make the cars seem a bit more realistic. The tracks were as well designed, even a bit more detailed than Top Gear Rally’s.
Infact at the time, the game’s only real shortcoming was its length. I remember bringing the game home and a friend of mine, Bef, came over. We sat down and had a blast with the game. But in the course of that very night we had already beaten the entire game and unlocked everything save for the “hidden” cars. It was a bit disappointing that $70 didn’t provide more than a few hours of gameplay. There wasn’t even a time trials mode to sink time into. Just rinse and repeat the entire experience to earn some hidden cars. Not my idea of “replay value”.
I have to be honest though, when I plugged this back in today, I was far from impressed. This game really highlights how far video game technology has come in the past 10 years. The sound is horrible. Music tracks are actual recordings from a band named “Grindstone”. Screaming guitars, that sort of thing. But due to the space constraints of the N64 cartridge, they were so compressed they sounded absolutely awful. You probably wouldn’t notice it through a three inch paper speaker on your TV, but through any kind of sound system, it really grates on the ears. MIDI tracks would have been a better choice, and that’s saying something. Like most of these games, the graphics take a little time to adjust to and all in all, they haven’t aged well. I had high hopes for the “High Res” mode, but to be honest. I couldn’t even tell a difference between the two.
The most annoying part of this game for me now, is the controls. The cars feel like they weigh just a scoop heavier than two bags of dog food. The slightest twitch of the control stick can send your car careening into the wall. Investing some money in “handling” serves to make the controls even more sensitive. Unfortunately as you progress through the game, the speeds become so insane, you need insane cornering ability just to get through the track. If you do happen to twitch at the wrong time, you’re likely to either go literally FLYING off the course and burst into a ball of…orange fuzz. Or just smack a wall and do the same. It’s a very frustrating task unless you’ve memorized the tracks. Which sadly, I have forgotten.
I tried to give the game a chance, but after about 45 minutes I’d had enough. Really expected to have more fun with the game, but it wasn’t in the cards. There are so many better racing games even just on the N64. At the time, all the game really had going for it was some fairly impressive eye candy. Now that I’ve been spoiled by today’s games that doesn’t leave much left to appreciate on this one.
11.9.08Slow progress on the house.
I was going to do some more painting today, but it was too cold according to the directions on the can. Might be done with painting for the winter. But most of it looks better than it did. And I can live with it until spring.
Did end up getting a flag for the house though! I think it looks pretty good!
A Look Back: Cruis’n World
Cruisin’ World really was a mixed bag for me. Against popular opinion, I was a big fan of the first game: Cruisin’ USA. Dated it was, but it was plain, simple, fun. My first and most impressionable experience with this game was in its arcade form. I remember they had a full arcade cabinet in the Dodge City mall movie theater. Any time we happened to end up there I pumped that thing full of quarters. Something about it was just too fun. Maybe it was the way the wheel jumped around and pushed back against you in the corners, or double tapping the gas pedal to do some sweet jumps.
Wouldn't mind having one of those in my basement!
My anticipation for the N64 version was long and drawn out. I enjoyed the game at the mall, but longed for my own copy I could pick up and play whenever I wanted. Putting Cruis’n World on a cartridge seemed like a no brainer to me, but business executives must have seen it differently. I couldn’t tell you how long it was, but it seemed like years from when I first sat in that hard plastic chair in the arcade, to the day I read Cruisin’ World was to be released on the N64.
Unfortunately the long wait for the game had somewhat diluted my fanaticism for the game. I’d already played it quite thoroughly. That didn’t stop me though from being at the store the day it was released to pick it up. Rather than delirious excitement, I felt more relieved that it was finally out, and I finally had it. The kind of relief you get when you loan a game to a friend and finally get it back after asking for it for months.
When I plugged this one back into the Nintendo 64 today, all the cheezy 20 second loops of music came back like it’d been a couple days since I last played. At least the music was of much better quality than Cruis’n USA in just about every way music can be quantified. The car models (which weren’t too impressive, even at the time) are reminiscent of the kinds of cars you cut out of the side of a Happy Meal box and fold together. Given the “not serious at all” attitude of the game though, they’re easily dismissed. The learning curve is very gentle. Maybe two races in, I was pulling off all the turboslides and jumps without much difficulty. I’d forgotten a lot, but it’s all so close to the surface, it doesn’t take long to discover it again. Considering the nature of the game was to be played maybe 5 minutes a day in an arcade, it’s not too surprising that there isn’t much depth here.
It seems easier to compare Cruis’n World and USA more objectively now. World is far and away a better game in just about every aspect. Better graphics, sound, and controls. But a few of the things that were definitive to the series I noticed were missing. Namely extremely low resolution scantly clad women. No bikini waving flag girls. No double D breasted small t-shirt wearing ladies. Not that those five frame animated females do anything for me, but it’s just one of those over the top cheezy touches that really completes the Cruis’n experience.
As much as my anticipation had waned over the months of waiting, I could tell by the data still saved on the cartridge, that I still put a relevant amount of time into this game. All the cars were unlocked and some reasonably impressive times were posted. I can’t imagine now spending much more than a good 30 minutes with this game…but looking at the release dates for the time, Cruisin’ World came out during a pretty good gaming drought. From Top Gear Rally in October 1997 until Zelda over a year later, there wasn’t much new worth playing. For lack of anything better to play, I must have poured a decent amount of free time into this. While it was fun to sit down and cruise the world…I don’t see myself seriously picking up this game for quite some time again.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLsKgxGPZDY]
11.5.08The election is over…I’m SO HAPPY!
Not because Obama won. I’ll be honest, out of all the candidates on the ticket, he’d have been the last guy I’d vote for. I’m happy because it’s a clear victory. It’s over. There’s no ambiguity this morning. Obama’s going to be the president come January and we’re not going to be dragging this thing out even longer.
It’s so funny, I’d been observing people the last couple days leading up to the election. The atmosphere was really more akin to the Super Bowl. People were talking about the strategies, making predictions, even planning parties and talking about drinking games to play during election night! Ha ha. And then when it’s all over, there’s the jubilant cries of victory, and the hanging heads of defeat.
Perhaps it’s because I’m not as electrified by politics as those people, but I wonder what the catalyst for all the emotion is. Is it really the morals and ideals? Or is it just to be on the winning team? If it was REALLY about voting for who you believed in…why does it so often come down to two the “lesser of two evils”?
Government is such a large collaborative entity that no one official, even the president, can “doom” the country, or save it. If we as citizens want to feel an honest change in our ways of life…shouldn’t we spend hours more time listening to the issues of our LOCAL political races: City, County, State… Do not the decisions made in these offices make a larger impact on our day to day lives? Not that we should ignore federal positions, but that your vote has a much larger voice on a local level. Especially in a state like Kansas.
No matter what, I’m willing to bet the world keeps turning. Things usually are the way they are for a reason.
Some of my favorite Guild Wars scenes.
Well, since we have no digital camera, and it’s going to be Thanksgiving before we can get it back…the blog will be a bit devoid of pictures. To counter the giant blocks of text that will surely take over, here’s a few of my favorite views in the game of Guild Wars!
Standing on a precipice in "The Falls".
Another view.
Extravagant sewers in Kaineng City.
Peaceful Shing Jea country side.
A remarkably productive weekend!
Well with the glorious weather we’ve been having, I was able to get quite a bit accomplished this weekend! I had several goals lined up, and I think I achieved them all.
First goal was to get Andrea’s exhaust fixed. It took $10 and about 20 minutes on my back with a grinder, grinding old rusty bolts off…but I got it off, and now she has four inches of shiny new exhaust pipe underneath her car. No need for extra strength coat hangers anymore!
Second, the drain pipe for the sink in the bathroom started leaking. Luckily it had just worked its way loose somehow. I took it apart. Cleaned out the grody mess, and put it back together and it works like new!
The big goal for the weekend was get at least the front of the house painted. I FINALLY got my ladder! It’s a little on the light duty side…i.e. wobbly. But it works, and once you get used to the ladder swaying back and forth and you realize it’s not going to topple over, it’s not too bad I guess. But I did get MOST of the front of the house painted and the whole west side. So I still need to get actually on the roof to finish the front, but then I should be good until spring at least. Unless we keep having 70 degree days all winter. Then I should be done in a couple weekends! I’d take some pictures…but we left our camera in Wichita. You’ll just ave to come see for yourself!