1.30/2011

I got an Xbox Kinect out of curiosity (and a sixty-six percent discount on the price due to previously sold games)... and I'm having a pretty good time with it. The game that's holding my attention is Dance Central. It's essentially a Dance version of Rock Band. It's pretty interesting. Last Friday, I had a few people over to play the game and it was a huge success. People enjoyed the "Dance Battles," the dance moves, the character personalities, the songs, the motion controls, and the small amount of unlockables.

The only downsides I see thus far is that there is no Rock-Band-esque Career Mode, there are a small amount of songs, there are no customizable characters, there are only two outfit options for the pre-determined characters, and there are only a handful or so of different stages to dance on.

It's interesting how the Kinect is allowing more people to enjoy games. I assume it's because traditional controllers seem too complicated to laymen. Yet, I find this strange... mostly because I think the current controllers are very simple. Oh well, either way more people are playing.

Dance Central is cool.

1.3/2011

I know this seems strange to talk about, but I was watching Easy A and I was reminded how little these actors don't look like high school kids. In the movie, the main character, Olive, has a "high school friend" that literally looks like she's in her mid-twenties... or thirties. Is that supposed to be believable? I guess it makes sense that they don't use people who look like (or are) the particular age, because it would make the older part of the audience (which is a mixture of college students and adults) uneasy to watch literal teenagers getting physical. At the same time, why not change the setting of the story to college? Would it make it any less believable? Well, maybe it might, maybe in college the rumors might not spread like wildfire.

My other issue with the movie is that certain things, specifically Amanda Bynes character (and maybe Lisa Kudrow) seemed to overact at every opportunity. I guess they might have thought that a similar performance to both All That and Friends would have sufficed for dramatic, or even mundane parts. Sadly, it came off as slapstick.

Easy A was meh.

What went wrong with Halo: Reach? I've been playing it online over break and it just doesn't feel addictive the way that Halo 3 or Halo 2 did. I know it's been three months since the game came out, but it's kind of ridiculous that most people I know have stopped playing it. People were still playing Halo 2 and Halo 3 for years after. Yet, when I log on during a time when everyone should be free (around the holidays), only a few thousand people are playing. Pathetic.

Another thing about Reach is that certain power ups within the game seem broken. I can't quite put my finger on it, but certain powers just seem to break the game. It's just not fun. Last thing... why the hell is it that nearly everyone I've played with online plays without a microphone? One aspect of becoming good at Halo is improving teamwork. One method of improving teamwork is communication. Sigh. I might just beat this game and sell it.

Halo...what happened to you? You used to be so good.

I was recently reading a post in someone else's blog about the end of relationships, and gave it some quick thought. I think that a break up is hard to deal with due to the conditioning nature of the relationship. People are conditioned emotionally through talking with someone frequently, confiding in them, asking them for advice, and relying on them for support. Physical conditioning occurs in the form of physical intimacy with another person. It's completely understandable why people feel empty after a relationship. The void they feel is the place in the life that their ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend used to occupy.

The way I deal with a break up is very similar. I condition myself out of it. The time I would spend talking on the phone to my first girlfriend, I spent talking with friends. I filled idle times when I had an opportunity to relapse into thought about her with Halo 3 and working out. Lastly, I deleted her phone number, electronic pictures of her, her screen name, and gathered every physical artifact of her and placed it in a garbage bag in my closet. After a few months, when I was essentially devoid of emotion, I took the bag out of the closet and dumped it in the trash. All of this helped me recondition myself.

I would recommend it.