Thursday, December 23, 2010

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Toy Story 3:
I always preferred the Toy Story franchise to the Shrek franchise, and number 3 doesn't disappoint. It hits all the right notes, blending the humourous with the touching, even if the giant zombie baby doll is too creepy for redemption. The only problem was with our local Blockbuster (if five miles away can still be called local) who decided to rent a disc containing none of the special features. Netflix Instant is probably soon to be in our future.

Final Grade: A

Iron Man 2:
This movie was pretty forgettable, in spite of the incredible make-up job that makes Terrence Howard look like Don Cheadle. The one-liners and Downey Jr. magic are still there, but once the movie devolves into a bunch of robots fighting each other and the actors themselves are replaced by special effects, it gets pretty tedious. I greatly preferred the first movie.

Final Grade: C+

Dragon Quest XI:
I always expect that I'll like JRPGs more than I actually do, and to be honest, this one is pretty good for what it is -- catchy music, good translations, and a fun feel. Its downfall comes in the form of unchangeable text speed, something that should be a given in ANY video game in 2010. Although the base default is pretty zippy, there's still too much time spent waiting since Dragon Quest, by its nature, is a very grindy game with lots of battles and merchandising. The menu system is old-school, so selling a piece of thread takes you through menus for "Buy / Sell?", "Which Character?", "Which Item?", "I can pay X, is this good?", "Would you like to sell again?". This is more tedious than watching robots fight.

Final Grade: B-

Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton:
Back when Rachel was a regular reader, she'd occasionally plug the blog of Wil Wheaton, former child actor in Stand By Me and Star Trek: The Next Generation. This book is a collection of blog posts over the last ten years coupled with a retrospective memoir of his transformation from "former child actor" to general mayhem maker. Although I don't care a whit for anything related to Star Trek, I found this book to be an enjoyable read, and easy to relate to, enough so that I now link to his blog from the Bloglog so I can read it live and uncut. The only negative comment I have relates to the Kindle edition rather than the content itself: the Kindle version makes no delineation between where a blog post ends and his "post-thought commentary" begins, not even a line break, so I spent a few sentences of each chapter confused as to what exactly I was reading.

Final Grade: A-

8-year-olds published in peer-reviewed journal
Google sued for showing underwear in Street View
Gabor's prince mistakes glue for eye drops

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