Hopefully I can add a few things about the game that others have not allready.

Well I have completed the game and though I should finish up my thoughts on my play through. 

If you do a little research on the internet(s) you’ll find that the game is actually based on a book of the same title.  The Russian author, Dmitry Glukhovsky, apparently first started writing the book online as an interactive experiment in 2002.  He would write a chapter, post it online and people would comment on it, he would read the comments and then write the next chapter.  It was eventually published in print form and, apparently, is something of a phenomena in Russia. 

However, just as many movies based on video games have trouble jumping from one form of media to another . . . Metro 2033 the game looks to have lost something ‘in translation’ as it were.   But before I tell you what I didn’t like, let’s go over what I loved about this game.   

The developers, Ukraine based 4A games, did a wonderful job of bringing a rich lush world to life.  The detail in the levels is amazing . . . I wont go back and re-hash stuff from my First Impressions . . . but it was a pleasant surprise to find myself, level after level, stopping and just looking around and taking it all in.  I truly got the feeling of being in the game. 

The game mechanics that I talked about in my First Impressions:

-  the fact that you have to periodically recharge your head lamp and night vision goggles,
- you have to put away your gun to bring out your ‘journal’ to see your goals,
- you have to pump your pneumatic weapons,
- you have to change out your gas mask filter from time to time, etc.)
I still love.  I love them !  This brought me into the world so much more.  You constantly have to think going into a situation, is my air going to run out ? . . . is my head lamp going to go out in the middle of this fight ? . . . where is the nearest place I can hide and check my compass or recharge my lamp or change my air filter ?   This built the suspense all the more in a game already full of suspense. 

The survival horror aspect of the game isn’t quite as suspenseful as, say, Dead Space (where you are always wondering what is going to pop out of the vents and come after you), but the fact that you can hear the mutants coming, or much of the time see them coming, only gives you a little extra time to crap your pants before they start attacking you. 

The music is very strange, but is very moody and fits the world perfectly.  I don’t remember a game where the acoustic guitar is used in the main theme so much, but it gives a lonely (and very Russian) feel to the game.  You also have your standard orchestral themes during the suspenseful parts (not that they are bad, they are very good). 

The game also has a few disappointing aspects for me as well, many of which come from the fact that 4A Games did such a good job in crafting the world . . . only to deny you any access to it.  For instance . . . at one point in the game you are in a metro tunnel with a Ranger and you come upon an ‘Anomaly’ (we will call it).  You are taught what to do when this Anomaly comes near you, you learn some about it . . . it is presented as a game mechanic that looks like it will show up later (you know, when games take the time to ‘teach’ you about how to deal with something so that when it shows up later you’ll know what to do).  Well it shows up 60 seconds later and that’s the last time you interact with it at all (other then, perhaps, one other time).  They take the time to teach you about something in the world, peak your interest, give you some background, show you how to interact with it . . . then you never get the chance to interact with it again.  This happens several times with several things in the game and is perplexing to me.  Does this stem from the developers following the book closely or did they simply have to cut parts of the game out ?  They do such a good job of showing you a wonderfully crafted world . . . only to move on and show you something else with out ever giving you the chance to use what you learned. 

Also, a good chunk of the game is spent making your way toward Polis (the big city where you must warn people of the bad Dark Ones ramping up their attacks).  You stop in several stations before this where you can walk around and interact with the inhabitants and see the ‘city’ as it were, but when you finally arrive at Polis you roll into (what amounts to) the big city.  Being 4 metro stations closely connected, this place is huge !  There are people everywhere when you arrive.  Then you are escorted into a small room where you can buy weapons and ammo . . . and then you watch a series of cut scenes and promptly leave.  You never get the chance to look around the place you’ve been hearing so much about, that you’ve been heading toward for such a good part of the game. 

Again, I don’t know if this was the game following the book closely or the designers deciding to cut this out of the game for whatever reason.  But it feels strange because they make such a big deal of you finally making it to Polis for so much of the game . . . and then deny you more then 30 seconds of looking at it.  Literally, you get about 30 seconds of rolling into town and then . . . that’s it. 

There are other examples of this type of thing, but basically they hype up stuff or show you how to deal with certain situations . . . only to deny you ever doing so.  This was frustrating and made the game feel a little . . . disjointed and confused.  As a narrative, as a story that you experience, it’s wonderful . . . as a game it leaves a little to be desired only because they do such a good job in so much of the game, the parts that are lacking stand out all the more. 

Another issue I had was the moral choices.  This is a game mechanic that isn’t explained at all . . . you just have to pick up on it.  There are several times when you make obvious choices (not exactly ‘good or evil’, more like good or selfish).  But from time to time you hear these whispers and see a flash of light when you do stuff (sometimes when you hear the end of a conversation between people, sometimes when you just look at stuff).  Apparently, when you hear the whispers and see the subtle flash of light . . . that was a moral choice.  As I said these can just be looking at something or listening to people talk, which was a bit ambiguous to me.  Did I get the good or selfish point when I listened to these people talk ?  I still don’t know, and searching online a lot of people aren’t sure.  Your moral points affect the ending . . . that’s all I’m going to say.  But why wouldn’t you make this a little more prominent if it’s so important as to affect the ending of the game ?  Maybe it was suppose to be ‘secret’.

I enjoyed the game a lot, though I’m not sure I would have paid $60 for it knowing what I know now.  It was an immersive survival game that forces you to truly be proactive in your survival (not just kill everything, but truly find ways to stay alive).   If you can look past the flaws, and memorize a few button combos, I think you will find a wonderful story worth playing.  It’s a new spin on survival horror that I liked very much !

Well this is as late as it can be, but things have been CRAZY busy lately and I havent had a lot that I wanted (or could) talk about.  So, here is an end of the week offering. 

Well, more of a few thoughts that I wanted to mention that perhaps other people haven’t said.  I wrote a review of the game when I had finished it and then realized that most everything I had to say . . . was said much better by someone else.  So I’m just gonna’ make a few observations here and tell you how I felt about it.

First of all, I think that one of the problems I have with Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2 has to do with a . . . well kind of a strange thing in my past.   I grew up in Florida surrounded by the ocean (and a strong, almost overbearing fascination with it), and with an Aunt and Uncle who told me wonderful stories about the sunken city of Atlantis since I was old enough to understand language.  My earliest doodles in school (you know . . . when you doodle instead of taking notes in class) were always of an underwater city, usually in various stages of decay since it was super old or had been destroyed . . . though my citied were much less sky scraper-ish and more dome-like or squat boxes.  Usually I imagined living in the city, having to take care of it, if we were at war with another underwater city or with the surface or whatever. 

So . . . yah . . . I’ve had this fascination with the ocean and with an underwater city since I was a kid.  Strange, I know, but that’s me.

So when they first started to release some early design concepts for this new game taking place under the ocean with this old ruined feeling to it . . . I was completely fascinated and immediately had a connection to it.  I was immediately taken back to my child hood fascination with living in an underwater city.  Come on , you know you had strange fascinations like this as a kid !

Much as I did with Bioshock 1, I had a lot of preconceptions going into Bioshock 2.  In the back of my mind, I expected the game to be (basically) like the underwater city I had imagined from my childhood (I grew up in Florida with family who told stories of the lost city of Atlantis . . . and have always had a fascination with underwater anything.  That’s the kind of thing that happens when you grow up surrounded by water and the space program I guess). 

Anyways . . . from the moment I saw concept art for Bioshock 1 I was hooked.  I immediately saw the city I daydreamed about as a kid !  I think it was that fascination with the very concept of the game (an underwater city in the midst of a civil war and half ruined), and the story, that drew me to make some (erroneous) conclusions as to what the game was going to be like.  Well the game is a shooter with a good story, and I think I wanted a perfect story that was a also shooter (I think I wanted it to be more like Mass Effect).  I had the same problem with Bioshock 1.  I wanted it to be something it was never intended to be.

What Bioshock 2 IS, however, is a pretty satisfying shooter with a good story behind it.  While this time around I felt a more personal connection with the story, along with a better sense of who the citizens of Rapture were and who they have became . . . I still have some issues with the logic of the plot. 

You are told certain things in the game. . . lead to believe certain things . . . that turn out not to happen, with no explication as to why.  Not that you are deceived, that I could buy and was expecting.  But you are told ‘do this, and then this will happen’.  But it doesn’t happen, and you are never given an explanation as to why.  Also, you are presented with a weak explanation as to why certain things must be done . . . with obvious other routs you could take with much better endings . . . but you are just expected to accept that there is no other way.  I think evoking an emotion from the player took precedence over logical story telling in some places. 

Though I did feel a better connection to the main characters, you only interact with them through the radio . . . meeting them only occasionally and usually through a glass wall.  You just fight splicer after splicer after splicer to progress one of their objectives . . . though the reasons they fight you are different this time.  But, that’s why this game is a shooter first and a story driven piece second. 

As for the game play, it’s more of the same with a few new things mixed in.  I felt more at home with my spliced powers then I did in Bioshock 1, though there is a delay when you pull the left trigger a second time to use your powers again . . . leaving me to shock the wall as I turn away from an already dead enemy. 

I though the sound design was as good, and in many places better, then Bioshock 1.  I turned around a couple of times to see if a sound was from the game or actually outside my apartment door.  The difference of each level via music (which is less music and more ambient sound made with instruments) is awesome. 

The level design was better this time around.  Rapture has gotten a little more run down then in the first one, not 10 years more run down (a complaint of mine . . . you only ever see someone repairing anything in the game once.  I guess they just built it THAT well. Other then one area that was flooded.).  The layout of each level is different enough to keep it interesting, and some of the areas have very good and differing themes, but you never get quite the variation you did in the first game.

Multiplayer, though not liked by many people, is probably the most fun I’ve had with the game.  Yes, there are lag issues . . . not like at launch but they are still ocasionally there.  But I feel like I am constantly rewarded with new stuff, I level up pretty quickly at first and unlock a lot early on.  I am constantly changing my strategy, doing different things, mixing it up . . . and even when I loose I leave the game with a good feeling.  It’s basic in some peoples eyes, yes.  It’s not COD.  But there is something fun about it that I just cant quite put my finger on . . .  I am always happy to play it.  The levels offer opportunities to do different things (is that guy in water?, shock him.  Look, there’s a turret to hack.  An oil slick to burn.  A balcony to jump down from.  A vent to hide in.) . . . they feel less like geometry to run around in and more interactive environments to use to your advantage. 

I think a lot of what it boils down to is this . . . the new design team played it safe design wise and you can see that in just about every area of the game.  It looks almost exactly like Bioshock 1.  It plays like Bioshcok 1 (with a few improvements).  It sounds better the Bioshock 1, but still overuses the radio as an in-game plot advancer.  The story has some interesting characters, like B1, but none are better then in the first game.  There are a few new Plasmids, and the upgrades for each plasmid are MUCH better then B1 . . . but you still have mostly the same old plasmids to deal with.  The plot is interesting, but so full of unanswered questions and holes that it feels like they designed the levels first and THEN made up a story to connect them together . . . which is not cool.

I want to like Bioshock 2 more then I do.  It’s a good game.  If you like B1 then you’ll like B2 . . . but it ultimately feels like Bioshock 1.5 and only 90% done at that.  IF they had put a little more time into the story and fixed a few things from B1, then it would have truly been B2.  Still, perhaps I pick apart at it precisely because I see so much potential in it.  I enjoyed the game.  It was fun.  I even like the multiplayer !

Quick Review-

If the actual game is anything like the demo, it’ll be an immersive wonderful game with depth and detail in every aspect, good fighting with a new kind of stealth and loads of fun to play.  Grade of A overall !  Get the demo for yourself and see.

Long Review-

So I downloaded the demo a few days ago and just had a change to play it Thursday.  The first thing I noticed is that for a 2 gigabyte demo, it’s pretty short.  But when you play the demo, you see how many art assets and sound (all in very high quality) Read more

Having completed about a third of the game (I’ve unlocked about a third of the area you can go to anyways), I thought I might jot down some initial thoughts about the newest arrival in my game collection.

Nothing about this game stands out as truly ground breaking.  Almost every element in the game has been done just as well, if not better, in other games. The plot line is ‘kiddy pool’ deep.  The graphics are par for the course, nothing special. 

But I have to say the way they put all these things together makes for a surprisingly engaging game. 

The plot line that starts the game, which you can find on the back of the box, goes a little something like this . . . it’s the future, you’re on a terra formed Mars looking for work (as the Earth economy is looking pretty bad) and team up with your brother who’s been here for a while.  The Earth Defense Force (EDF) who were originally here just keeping the peace are now oppressing the peeps of Mars, basically killing whom ever and taking what ever they want.  While out on your first tutorial, er salvage operation, with your brother you find out about the Red Faction and how they are fighting for freedom from oppression and all that.  You want nothing of it, you just want to make some money to send back to dear old mom on Earth. Well as luck would have it the EDF swoop in, kill your brother for being a terrorist, and then label you as a Red Faction member (you guys are brothers after all).  Just as you’re about to be killed, the Red Faction shows up, saves you, and thus you fight for them . . . because you don’t have much of a choice any more. 

Here’s the game play break down . . .

 - much like GTA, there are different ‘zones’ that you need control of.  You try to complete different missions (basically destroying or stealing EDF property in the area, or defending people form attack, or rescuing prisoners and transporting them back to your base) until their control in the area is gone.  You can also do missions which improve moral in the area, which means more people randomly start fighting for you during a fire fight and you get more random ammo stashes and the like.  Then, when you finally have forced the EDF out, you move on to the next area. 

     You have a bunch of static missions on the map you can do, plus many random ones that pop up from time to time, each worth either money, control, moral or all three.  You don’t have to do all the missions, just enough to get control of the area.  The missions are different enough that they haven’t gotten boring yet, though it’s usually some form of destruction, kill the bad guys, or theft. 

- again, much like GTA, there are roads and cars for you jack and get around.  Pretty well done actually, as the cars range from trucks to huge dirt movers to little zippy bubble things.  Each has different speed, handling, armor . . . some have weapons, some can hold people (who you can rescue and get back to the safe houses in some missions). 

- some people think the terrain is a little sparse, but it’s not . . . the buildings are just spread out.  Each area has a distinct look (color, feel, type of cars, etc) but many of the structures do look similar (though they are far from being cookie cutter copies of each other).  Being a terra formed Mars (no space suits here), along with the buildings looking very Earth industrial, makes the game seam like it’s set in the desert on Earth rather then on another planet. 

- every time you destroy stuff, you can find scrap.  This is used like money to buy upgrades to your weapons.  As you do different missions, you unlock different and better weapons.  You always have your brothers sledge hammer with you, and you get to carry three other weapons at a time (go back to base to change out what those three are). 

- while I wouldn’t consider it ground breaking, the destructibility of objects is very good in this game.  Other then the ground rock, just about everything you can destroy.  It breaks off in pieces and very believable chunks, the sounds don’t repeat when stuff falls like in other games, and usually stuff pretty well obeys the laws of physics (other then you can bust through metal and concrete with one swing of your sledge hammer, but you’ll be having too much fun to care).  Buildings even collapse when you take out their walls . . . or drive through them with a huge truck !

- there is a day / night cycle, but it’s purely visual.  No NPC’s change their patterns based on the time of day (at least not yet). 

     All in all I’m very happy with this game.  It’s just a fun game, not deep, not groundbreaking . . . just fun.  I haven’t tried any of the multiplayer yet, so that will be my project for this afternoon.  I give this game an A- because, well, it’s been a while since I played a game that was just all around fun instead of being the ‘first’ or ‘best’ at one thing only. 

What I’m busy with lately. . .

- getting church web page updated (with the help of David Mayer) with new content and tweaking the bugs that seam to be popping up

- prepping for the Community for Christ outreach on July 5^th.  This is where bunches of church’s in the area get together at the High School stadium and have a ‘community church service’.  We’re bringing sound again this year and . . . well it’s a pretty big undertaking to prep all the equipment and rent the extra stuff we need (weeks in advance) and then get it all to work in the scorching summer afternoon sun.  But it’s always exciting !

- recovering from a nice thick chest cold with some nice antibiotics, steroids, and a cough suppressant.  The steroid keeps me up at night (I cant skip a dose or that will make me worse) and the suppressant makes me loopy.  So the evenings are actually pretty fun lately lol. 

- trying to make our announcements look a little better (and more engaging) with a revamped design

- typing up a survey to get peoples feed back about the new site and media we’re trying out

In other news . . .

     E3 is over and, while I missed most of the live coverage (other then watching peeps Tweets and looking at joystiq.com) I’m still excited about a few games.

     Left 4 Dead 2 is coming out this fall.  Apparently this was going to be a huge update for original zombie-killing city-escaping FPS, but was so big Valve decided to make it it’s own game.  This has prompted some to cry foul, saying that releasing an entirely new game so close to the original is the company milking the franchise for all it’s worth rather then delivering on the massive amounts of DLC promised time and time again for the original game. 

     I’m kind of on the fence with this one.  When I first heard about this ‘protest’ to the new game I couldn’t understand why they were so upset about a new game coming out.  But when I think back to all articles and reviews of the original game where Valve promised time and time again a slew of DLC to keep the game going . . . I can see where they are coming from. 

     I’m really hoping that the new levels (maps, episodes?, movies?) are much less linear and more dynamic in the routs you take to the finish.  The new improved AI Director, weather, and time of day passage should make the second installment even better then the first.  Unless Valve just messes L4D2 up badly, I’ll be buying it for sure. 

     Assassins Creed 2 is looking pretty impressive as well.  This sequel is set in Renaissance Florence (and a couple other places) and has the new ancestor character, Ezio, friends with a young Leonardo DaVinci who has crafted for his him a strange new replacement to his throwing knives (a small gun).  There’s a pretty good interview over at joystiq.com (here) if you want more info and a cool trailer. 

     I want to see more on the new KOTOR and Splinter Cell games.  I remember seeing the ‘crowd dynamic’ video for the ‘new’ Splinter Cell game at the same time the   original Assassins Creed came out and thinking that they looked very similar.  Hopefully the ‘new’ Splinter Cell will be released before the SECOND Assassins Creed game is gathering dust.  KOTOR I’m just expecting to be good (with such a long development time now, hopefully they are crafting something worth all that time). 

Well I’ve started playing Resistance 2.  I know I’m late to the party, but I can only afford a single $60 game every 6 weeks or so.  And most of the games I’ve gotten in the past few months have been 360 games.  But I found Resistance used on the cheep and decided to get it for myself with my birthday money.  And I have to say . . . I’m torn about how I feel about the game.  For every thing in the game that I like or love so far, I find something that I’m annoyed by or just flat out hate. 

Now let me say that I’m only to the second level (completed Prologue and am about to finish up Chapter 1.  So this is just my initial opinion.  But there are several things that I can see will be carrying over into later levels, so I feel like some of the things that I love / hate will still be there through to the games end. 

I love how the levels are so detailed.  Look down at a grating in the floor and you don’t just see a grate with a texture under it . . . you see pipes, conduits, wires, water, etc.  You see STUFF under the floor there.  Not only that, but you don’t see a bunch of repeating pipes over and over . . . you see broken bits where a cord has been run from under the grating to someplace on the wall (where a repair was under way), or tools, or . . . just stuff.  Beat up, blood stained, worked on . . . stuff.  This is the kind of things that bothers me about other shooters . . . I want detail !  I’m so tired of shooting things in a square hallway that looks like every other square hallway.  I find myself just stopping and looking around and admiring the coolness of where I am.

The control scheme is nice.  I don’t remember being able to customize the controls in the previous Resistance (maybe you could and I just don’t remember) but I have a problem learning new control schemes . . . Resident Evil took me a few hours to get use to.  So the fact that I could set up the controls to be like every Halo / Call of Duty game made playing to so much easier for me (even on the PS3 controller which I don’t like very much). 

The sound design is very good, some of the sound implementation leaves me cringing though.  The epic first level left me with the feeling of being surrounded by Chimera, yet I could pick out the distinctiveness of each unit type.  It was loud and a lot of sound, but it wasn’t just noise, it made sense.  Though I found some of the dialogue hard to hear (I’m sure that’s more realistic, but I missed a couple key lines I think).  Also, as I have mentioned before, my center speaker isn’t the best in the world.  It’s has a strange muted tone to it and has given me some problems in games past . . . so that might have contributed to it too.  A few things that made me cringe were the looping sounds in Chapter 1 (the second level).  Some of the water loops had obvious loop points and looped twice a second . . . leaving it sounding a bit like a CD skipping.  This happened several times throughout the level with non essential sounds, but even the more background sounds stuck out like a sore thumb as I quickly ran by them.

Some of the things that frustrated me were the fact that in the first level I got stuck in some kind of spawn / death loop.  I was outside, running toward a broken bridge when I though I had just passed a piece of intel (I hadn’t in actuality), but I turned around to go back for it . . . ran a few steps, got blown up, spawned just above a twisted girder on the bridge, ‘slipped’ off it, fell to the river bed below and died.  Then the game reloads, I spawn just above the girder, and then fall to my death.  This went on a few times as I struggled to try to move one way or another so as to catch the edge and not fall, but to no avail.  I quit the game, then continued it only to spawn in the same point (obviously an auto save point) and die again.  After trying everything I knew how, I eventually just started a new game from the begining.  If this kind of thing happens in a later level and I have to start the game ALL THE WAY OVER . . . I’ll probably throw the game, case and all, in the trash and just end up reading about it on Wikipedia or something. 

Also, while I realize this is a shooter, I still expect a good story line.  Call of Duty 3 was just an excuse to shoot people, with sort of a story thrown in.  I expect more out of a shooter now.  From the end of the first level, to the beginning of the second level two years have passed.  But you don’t get a cut scene explaining what happened in those two years, where you are now, how these other people know you, or what the state of the Chimera invasion is.  Maybe later in the game there’s going to be a ‘flash back’ or something to fill in the gaps.  But I felt like I went from a situation where it was very clear what I was doing and where I was, to one where I was just expected to follow this guy to a command center and then kill some bad guys (‘details to follow’ kind of a thing).  I’m just keen on knowing why I’m doing what I’m doing . . . otherwise it’s just another in a long line of hall-crawlers. 

Anywho, death loops and missing story aside . . . I like it very much so far. 

This is a very cool board game, as well as an X-Box Live Arcade game, that I found.  A fun, easy to learn game that is different every time you play.  Check out my review HERE. 

DreamWeaver is not being nice to me today again, and the pictures are a bit blurry as I had to take them with my camera phone.  But you’ll get the picture. 

Once again I find my self waiting for Big Blue to Defrag to the point where I can actually do some audio editing . . . which means it’s time for a link dump ! 

 If this story is true, it’ll make me kind of angry.  I know we’re in a fiscal crunch, but so many discoveries come from just looking (and not looking for something specific).  Apparetnly President Elect Obama wants to cut the NASA budget . . . a lot . . . and use rockets that my Grandfather worked on to cary payloads (one way) . . . HERE  It’s true, my Grandfather worked on the Titan missles. 

 Ya know, if it were a Christian based work place in this story . . . there would be people all over the media screaming about it.  I dont think that any religion should be pushed at work (unless, as in my case, you work for a religious orgnization lol).  Sure, you can share your faith with people in conversations, but requireing anyone to attent any kind of religious ceremony is taking it too far.  Read more about Scientology in the workplace HERE. 

 So, reading this stroy . . . I’m not sure if that means that XP’s life has been extended only for low cost notebooks . . . or for everyone . . . read HERE. 

Here is a cool looking (well, sounding, well . . . what I read about it was cool) card game spoofing D&D . . . HERE

Here is another interesting game . . . HERE  . . . I might get this one and try it out on The1Shagg or DoctorJones4Ever and his wife some time.

I hate to tell anyone this, but I check this site out often to find strange board games to play . . . HERE

Fun times ! 

Things are slowly returning to normal, just in time for the Christmas Play rehearsals to start up in full swing.

Budges for 2009 were due today.  I managed to ask for $2,000 less stuff this year then I did last year.  It’s amazing how much money it takes just to maintain the A-V equipment.  Lights, projector lamps, gells, blank media, new cables, CCLI copyright renewal, and all manner of things just to keep stuff going.

Not to mention all the things we need to upgrade or replace in the coming year to account for stuff breaking (hard drive failures, memory upgrades, etc).

And that doesn’t include stuff that we need to get (like a new video mixing board since this one doesn’t always like to work the first, second, or third time you turn it on). 

My LG phone finally broke today.  It’s been having trouble changing for a while now.  Last night when I unplugged the charging cable, part of the phone came out with it . . . that’s never a good sign.  I’ve had it for like 3 years, and I think Michael had it for a year before that.  So 4 years isn’t a bad run for a cell phone.  The bad part is, for some STUPID reason, I cant upgrade to a new phone until December.  Or rather, I could upgrade . . . but I’d have to pay the full cost of the phone plus a $20 upgrade fee.  If I wait until December, then I get a $100 credit.

So I’m going to try and borrow someone’s old phone and do a line transfer until then. 

Any sudgestions for a new phone ?

I like LG, it MUST have clear voice quality, I don’t need a touch screen (I’d break it), I don’t need a slide phone or a razor . . . I just want a decent clear phone with web surfing capabilities (what phones don’t have that now adays I suppose). 

My Gears of War 2 review comming soon.

Oh, and check out Pete Cullens review of the latest Bond film HERE !

This sounds like a bad thing at first . . . the fact that Lionhead had to cut some stuff from the Fable II special edition.  But when you look at the stuff they cut (the ‘fate cards’, hobbie figure, and special case for the game) . . . it actually makes no difference to me at all. 

Oh, and it’s cheeper too.  That’s a plus for me !

 Read the Lionhead released statment HERE. 

However, I must admit, I totally saw this on Joystiq HERE.  And I stole thier picture (the one above).