But, outside of this instance this question has come up pretty frequently.  As a result of these constant questions, I will try to calmly and objectively state my discrepancies with Apple, and my reasons for supporting what I feel is a vastly superior platform; Google’s Android.

First, I’ll start with a bit of background.  Back in September 2008 with the 1st generation iPhone having a solid fan base in the industry, and with the launch of the 3G model (which should have been the first model in my opinion), I got swept up into the iPhone craze.  Sure, I absolutely hated iTunes back then still, but I thought how bad could it be?  I got the super-phone back then, and instantly fell in love.  Apple’s hardware is undeniably gorgeous, and undeniably well built in nearly all instances.  Over the next few months afterwards I delved into the functionality, and the hundreds of (useless) applications on the market.  It burned a nice little hole into my wallet too, with the dozens of paid for games I installed onto the phone out of the sheer “O-M-G this is so cool!” factor (98% of them didn’t last beyond one session on the toilet).  Then I turned to jail-breaking, as I wanted to see what other functionality I could squeeze out of the phone, and was beginning to realize how horribly restrictive Apple was with what they allowed to be published to their App Store (all the great apps they didn’t allow).  Sure, jail-breaking the phone was nice the first time, but then more iPhone OS (now iOS) updates started to come out.  Each one would completely break the jail-break, requiring waiting for new jail-breaks to appear, and then several subsequent painful hours applying the updates without nuking all my data (most of the time I did loose something).  After months, and months of suffering through this same cycle, dealing with Apple’s hypocritical marketing campaign of peace and love, and fighting against iTunes — arguably one of the worst, and certainly most bloated Windows applications ever created — I started to feel like maybe the iPhone wasn’t the ‘end all’ for smartphones.

Throughout that time I always had Google’s Android on my mind, but with the lukewarm launch of Android 1.0, and the availability being very limited (i.e. G1 on T-Mobile), it wasn’t something that was exactly exciting.  Then a little over a year after having the iPhone 3G, Google got to their next level of Android deployment with the Motorola Droid on Verizon’s network.  The main feature of this phone is that it heralded the release of Android 2.0, which improved on various elements that were lacking in the operating system with Android 2.0.  It is then that my interest peaked.  Sure, the phone was (and still is) ugly as sin in comparison to the Jesus Phone, and the Android Market at the time wasn’t (and still isn’t) as large as the App Store, but the Open Source operating system seemed like a breath of fresh air away from the closed off stagnation I was feeling with Apple’s tyrannical rule over their ‘sacred’ iPhone.  In a final moment of weakness (i.e. drinking) once the Droid orders went live on the web I furiously typed in my information, and hit the submit button as quickly as I could before I could second guess myself.  Apple’s hold was strong over me, but not strong enough.

I remember thinking to myself, “what have I done?”, “what if I hate it?”, “what about the apps!?”.  It was a risky decision to be sure, but a decision I felt I had to make to break away from something that simply was not working for me with Apple’s iPhone.  I got the Droid, and immediately dived in.  I quickly found that while the whole thing wasn’t quite as polished as Apple’s product, and was missing the 10,000 different fart application variations from the App Store (that was a joke), Google’s methodology was completely different from Apple’s; and I LOVED it.  Since then I’ve continued to get used to the platform, and have grown to love it completely.  Outside of Android’s great features (which can be a separate article on it’s own), the main reasoning for this goes back to the parent companies.

I want to clarify something here first: I don’t hate the iPhone, as much as I completely disagree with how Apple runs their business.  In their world, everything works perfectly.  The skies are blue, their commercials have pure white backgrounds with ‘super cool’ music, and PCs (Microsoft) are the devil; they basically market themselves as do-gooders.  That’s where one of my main problems comes from.  As previously stated, Apple’s hardware is fantastic, but it’s the software that I have a problem with.  The main factor in Apple’s success with the ‘it just works’ stand point with their products is that they are so incredibly restrictive you can’t mess anything up, because you don’t have the option!  Their marketing campaigns make it seem like they’re a bunch of open peace loving hippies, but that’s not exactly the case with the products.  The best analogy I can make is that pretend the U.S. government passed a law somehow that controlled exactly what you can eat, and banned all food they designated as being ‘bad for you’.  Meaning, no more hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, cheese fries, etc.  Your diet is relegated to celery sticks  with a side of low fat feta cheese, and water, everyday.  They won’t allow you to eat those hamburgers because then your cholesterol will go through the roof, and they’ll have to deal with your heart disease.  Sure, there is the food underground resistance (jail-breakers) that smuggle milk shakes and fried chicken tenders, but wouldn’t you rather live in a world where you openly ate whatever the hell you wanted?  I realize this analogy is a bit extreme, but that’s what it feels like for a technology enthusiast like me, with Apple.

Then comes in Google.  Sure, not a perfect organization either (really, which one is?), but their Open Source methodology with Android is what I want as a consumer.  I want the right to eat whatever I want, and load whatever software I want onto my phone or PC, knowing full well that there will be consequences if I eat the wrong things, or install crap software on my PC (it’s a bit ironic that iTunes itself is crap software under Windows).  Freedom, that’s the main dividing difference in-between the two platforms.  Not only are Android OS’ main features comparable, or arguably superior to iOS, but you can install whatever you want on the phone.  Even if an application isn’t on the Market you can install from any source you want.   That’s not to mention that Android OS is available on several different devices now, so you’re not stuck with only the same cookie-cutter option that every other person has.  With the Operating System being Open Sourced the development community can build their own versions, even having different ‘flavors’ of the system out on the web you can install for faster performance, more features, etc.  And if you don’t want all these extra ‘complications’, then you don’t have to delve into them.  Steve Jobs himself has outright admitted that the closed environment of Apple’s software is on purpose, and it is a methodology that drives their products for the sake of having a product that works all the time (not to mention they constantly want to look good).  At the same time they assume that anything else won’t work nearly as good because — to be honest — you’ll have the freedom to mess up your product.

This leads into my next discrepancy: the mentality of some of the Apple users.  As a consumer you have the absolute right to spend your hard earned money on whatever you want; including an Android Phone, iPhone, and even a Palm Pre (cackle).  But, it seems that too many Apple users are unwilling to try out anything else.  Apple’s products are superior to anything else in their eyes, and Apple can do no wrong.  When a new one is released, people flock in the thousands to buy the upgrade (i.e. iPhone), even if they recently upgraded already.  Most importantly, this mentality is even shared by users who actually have discrepancies with their products, namely the iPhone.  As it relates to the iPhone the most common example of this I hear is, “why won’t Apple put this awesome application on the App Store?”, amongst others (lack of widgets, etc.).   If someone came to me and said A) they tried both products for longer than 10 minutes and they felt that the iPhone was still better for them, or B) they wouldn’t change not one thing about their phones or how Apple runs their business, then I’d absolutely respect that 100%.  But, a lot of users won’t even look at anything else, or immediately shoot it down because it doesn’t work exactly like their precious iPhone.  However… I must partially digress, and apologize to Apple users.  This is because I realize it’s not entirely their fault.  The mentality surrounding the iPhone has progressed with it beyond being a just solid smart-phone, and even beyond being an Apple product, whereas now it’s a cultural status symbol.  Part of the hold Apple has on it’s consumers is with their products — namely the iPhone — feeling like they’re more than just gadgets.   They simply feel like they make you ‘cooler’ by getting one, especially if you got it first.  I myself will admit to this feeling with my original iPhone 3G, so I can understand it on some level.  On a psychological level it’s incredibly powerful when you think about it, and it’s an absolute testament to Apple’s marketing department (which is still hypocritical in my opinion because of the reasons above).

These are the reasons that I now stand behind the Android platform 100%, and I completely oppose the iPhone due to Apple’s way of thinking.  I’ve recently tried out the iOS 4 on a couple of phones and little has changed, besides iPhones now having features that are months behind other products that have already had them.  And until Apple changes their methodology (never), then it is what it is.  I for one am completely happy that I broke away from Apple’s self proclaimed end all smart-phone, because it’s something that works for me.  I know this now because I took the risk to go out and try out another option that was completely unfamiliar to me for the same of living a better ‘digital life’ with my smart-phone, and not have any limitations on what I wanted to do with it.

I hope that the Apple fans reading this aren’t offended, but I wanted to write down in black and white what my discrepancies were since this comes up so often.  I realize it may be difficult for anyone to expose themselves to different options, in this case with technology, especially when there is money involved.  To all the iPhone owners who absolutely love their phones, and wouldn’t change ANYTHING, then I applaud you for making the right choice for yourself as a paying consumer.  But for anyone that has wondered, “why do I have to jail-break to get this great app off of Cydia?”, let alone, “how am I holding my iPhone 4 wrong?”, then I implore you to keep an open mind.

When the game originally launched it did so with a fair amount of content out of the gate, but some players and publications were concerned that there wasn’t enough content to justify a full retail price tag, nor the proposed $12.99 subscription fee (that was never activated) at the time.  Since then Hi-Rez has shown an incredible amount of initiative, and constantly polled the user community to look for feedback on what they wanted in the game.

As an initial result of the feedback Hi-Rez brought the player community patches 1.1 and 1.2, which added content, along with features requested by the players.  Still, Hi-Rez was looking at expanding their game further based on some of the larger scale features players wanted to see in the game, without altering the formula they already established too drastically.  The result of this is the new ‘Sandstorm’ content brought to Global Agenda by Hi-Rez, starting with patch 1.3.  This patch brings some drastic changes to the weapons system, introducing World of Warcraft like quality levels to all of the weapons, plus unique Epic items, new Mercenary PvP maps, shops, AvA (PvP) revisions, and much more.

While I felt the initial content Global Agenda launched with was decent, it also wasn’t entirely fleshed out yet, so I unfortunately winded up not playing for very long after the beta phase, and live launch.  What I could say back then is even with a game that still needed to be developed a bit more, it had a very solid (and very fun) base, it was just a base product that Hi-Rez needed to build on.  I got a chance to play the updated game since the launch this past week, and thankfully I can now say that with this huge patch things seem to be moving in the right direction.  Not only have they moved in a new direction with implementing tweaked PvE and PvP content, but they’ve laid down the groundwork for more of the MMORPG elements we’re used to in that genre, to support their already great shooter gameplay.

The list of changes in this patch are absolutely huge.  For starters, to talk about the item quality level they’ve added to the game, for each weapon / device in the game they are now all represented with the ‘Warcraft’ quality level; meaning white for common, green for uncommon, blue for rare, and finally purple for the good ol’ epic quality.  Previously each player was given equipment points for their layout, with each device taking up points in that ‘pool’ allocated for equipment, based on the rank of the item chosen (i.e. Pain Gun IV = 4 points away from the pool).  Now that system is completely gone, with the player being free to equip whatever they want in every slot available without worrying about having points to allocate, as long as they meet the minimum level requirements for said item.  Now, whether or not you liked the old system is completely subjective.  I myself was neither for it, nor against it… it just was what it was, and I didn’t mind it.  With this new system it’s a return to what we’re used to in the genre, and I think it works pretty well.  It also makes things a bit more straight forward without having to manage a pool points to be able to equip gear you want.  I can also say that the differences in-between the items aren’t huge, in terms of stats.  So while a character over level 30 with epic gear will have an advantage over a lesser character on the battlefield, the difference in stats really isn’t all that big if you take a look at them.  For example, common and epic versions of the same weapon will have the same damage, although the epic weapon might have an additional 5% damage per hit, along with extended range (those extra attributes are also randomized, and can be further augmented with mods).  There are also specialized epic weapons, and devices, for each class that were added as well for characters 30 and up, which are unique items that differ from the base items each class is already used to.  The Recon has the option now to pick up two wicked dual wield serrated blades, while the Assault class gets a enormous hammer for melee attacks.  Those really are the tip of the iceberg, as the list goes on, and on from there (new epic devices, new epic boosts, etc.) for each class.  All in all it’s a system that’s working out really well so far, at least for me, and most importantly is still keeping a balance in the game, while allowing those players who’ve put in the time to have a bit of an edge.  In this game skill still triumphs gear, which is something that is sadly missing from the MMO market in general.

Another change is how you obtain all this new swag, which is through two newly implemented features.  The first is a loot bonus you get for each successful PvE, or PvP mission you successfully complete.  Meaning if you do a PvP Mercenary match, and win, you’ll wind up getting a random uncommon, rare, or epic piece of loot specific to your class.  Same goes for PvE Special OP missions, where if your team is successful in clearing the mission before the timer expires you also get one piece of loot.  As a side note, the random drops you get in PvE missions to use as components in blue prints for mods is still largely the same, if not a bit more elaborate now due to some of the blue print changes for equipment mods.  In addition to this random drop system, you also collect both Mercenary and Conquest tokens.  These are used as a form of currency to purchase class specific gear in the new shops for each class in the Dome.  Like the random drops for successful missions, you are also granted these tokens upon mission completion; 3 Mercenary and 1 Conquest for each successful PvE/PvP mission, and just 1 Merc token for a failed mission.  The Mercenary tokens are used to purchase rare / epic level devices, and armor (more on that later), while the Conquest tokens are a lot more sparse, and are used to purchase those super special epic quality class items previously mentioned.  For me, both of these systems are a welcome change to the game to complement the new weapon & device quality levels.  While some players may interpret this as Hi-Rez conforming into some MMORPG trappings, for me it adds some incentive for going back and doing the same missions after you’ve already done them several times, or maxed out a character, but not their gear.

Next up in one of the more noticeable changes is how Hi-Rez has gone back and added in traditional armor into the game, and done away with the several slots your character had throughout their suit to augment their abilities.  The armor works like you’d expect; head, leg, chest (and so forth) armor increases your character’s HP as a base, and then adds further protection for certain damage types.  Your helmet, and whole suit still affect your appearance itself, same as before.  I for one found the old system to be a bit confounding, and in-between worrying about your device layout for missions with the previous point system, and all those slots to insert upgrades into, it just seemed a bit nonfunctional.  That is: it worked, but wasn’t very streamlined it seemed.  Now they’ve done away with the old modifications, and made them to work out like modifications (or enchantments for you WoW players) for each device itself, and piece of armor.  The mods further augment your gear with more damage, more protection, etc.  The mods themselves, like before, come from blue print schematics, and components found as drops in the PvE missions.  Simply put, it’s streamlined, and it’s easy to understand if you’re used to the genre.  Again, another very welcome change to make the game more accessible.  While I appreciate the changes Hi-Rez started with originally to try and break free of some of the typical MMORPG trappings, they just weren’t as efficient as they should have been.  ”If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, perhaps?

For the anti-social players (ha!) Hi-Rez also added solo missions, which are basically 1 player versions of the PvE missions you may already be used to, but tuned down of course.  These allow players to still play combat to either practice, collect some XP, collect components, etc.  While not exactly an Earth-shattering change to the game, it’s a nice little feature to have.  This is also one area I’d love to see them expand in future patches, perhaps with more maps / enemies, or even more tantalizing: randomly generated maps (Anarchy Online anyone?).  One can only hope, but it’s a solid start to a potentially great future moving forward.

The last thing I wanted to briefly hint at are the new maps for PvP: Blackwater Loch, and Trafalgar.  I’ll say right now that I love these new maps.  They’re both pretty vast, with Blackwater Loch being ‘vertically vast’, comprised of a circular waterfall into a basin containing a very tall processing plant of sorts, and Trafalgar being ‘horizontally vast’, comprised of a group of air ships en route to a location that you have to fly around, on top of, and into (amazing, amazing map).  If this is any indication of what these guys are cooking up it’s really exciting to think about what else is coming, and these maps add a great replay value to complement the solid array of Mercenary maps already in the game from before.

I’ll say it one more time, there were a lot of other changes in this patch, a lot of which I won’t get into in this editorial for sake of brevity, or because I may have not experienced them yet (i.e. AvA changes).  If there is one last comment I want to make in relation to this patch, and with Global Agenda in general, is that the most impressive thing about this game might be Hi-Rez themselves.  They’re basically an indie studio; an indie studio that took a huge risk with releasing this type of game independently.  What impresses me about them though besides the risk, is the mentality.  Ever since launch they’ve committed themselves to this game, and committed to the community of players behind it.  They’ve monitored the forums, they’ve sent out constant polls asking the players how they liked the game, and what the players wanted to see in the game.  They’ve responded to the requests not by talking, but by directly implementing what we asked for in the game, not driven by some corporate executive looking to maximize their profits on the title by just wildly appealing to a broader audience.  To top that off, because they felt the game could use more content they’ve not activated the subscription fee (since Feb.) until they felt the game was up to par for our money, and dropped the sub price from $12.99, to $9.99 USD.  You would never see that from a mainstream studio, regardless of what they came up with at launch.  It’s refreshing to see that type of commitment to the players, and to the product in a now nearly completely profit driven industry.

If you’re into MMO games, and / or shooters, I encourage any one to at least give the free trial of this game a shot.  This 1.3 patch is the first phase of the ‘Sandstorm’ content Hi-Rez is bringing to the game, with the next phase due later this summer (open traditional PvE areas, etc.).  I’d highly recommend this game to fans of the genre, and I’m excited to see where the developers of this title take the game in the coming months; and hopefully years.  You sparsely see this type of development now-a-days, with this type of scope, and it’s something to savor.

With the movie being such a surprise hit, Marvel Studios quickly commissioned a sequel to go into production almost immediately. I’d say the average for these types of things to happen, from pre-production, production, and post-production / advertising is about 3 or so years (maybe more in some cases). Marvel Studios wanted this done in only two years from start to finish, which needless to say is incredibly aggressive. Speaking for myself, just as with the original, I had doubts on whether it could be done. This time, not because of the crew, but because of the studio, and their (more than likely profit driven) decision to rush a sequel into theaters. Luckily, all the original players, with the exception of Terrence Howard, were able to sign on for the sequel immediately, once again under the direction of Jon Favreau. Now, it’s two years later. After the teaser trailer, theatrical trailer, and a multi-million dollar advertising campaign Iron Man 2 has just hit theaters for consumption. Was Jon Favreau, and crew successful at once again surpassing the even loftier expectations set on the sequel for critical, and commercial success? The answer maybe subjective, but in my opinion they’ve succeeded at making another great, and fun movie. However, does it surpass the original, as with a lot of at least recent comic book sequels? In that unfortunately, it does not.

The story picks up after Iron Man, where Tony Stark has revealed his true identity to the world, and over the past six months has secured some sort of semblance of world peace. Tony is reveling in his success, while the government nips at his feet due to what they feel is a security threat with one individual possessing such advanced technology. At the same time, the son of a former parter of Tony’s father (Ivan Vanko, i.e. Whiplash) plots vengeance against Iron Man, for what he feels is a travesty committed by Stark Industries against the world in weapons development, and Tony’s seemingly arrogant attitude. What follows is a two hour romp with: Tony dealing with the company his father founded, his somewhat odd relationship with Pepper Potts, his best friend James Rhodes becoming alienated due to Tony’s behavior (at the same time becoming War Machine), the scrutiny of the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization lead by Nick Fury, competition from Stark Industries rival Justin Hammer, fighting of a slow death brought on by the inherit radioactivity of the power source for the Iron Man suit in his chest, and of course the threat from Ivan Vanko. All of this is certainly a lot to deal with, and it certainly is a multi-faceted plot that completely fills up the two hour running time. Luckily, while other movies have tried this level of complexity (Spider-Man 3) you never really feel bogged down in this movie, as it moves at a fairly good pace with the exception of a little slow patch in the middle. However, that’s not to say this type of a setup isn’t without it’s problems. Iron Man 2 could have benefited from some streamlining, but first let’s talk about what works.

As previously stated cast, and crew from the original Iron Man are mostly back. Robert Downey Jr. continues to entertain the hell out of the audience as Tony Stark, and still continues to be a great, great casting decision for this character. While his performance alone doesn’t solely make these movies (nor should it), it really does bring a credibility to this character, and no matter what the circumstances you want to see Tony Stark, and you want to really see Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow continues to be, in my opinion, a great Pepper Potts as well, in balancing out Tony Stark’s at times brash, play boy attitude throughout the proceedings. They have a sort of great ying-yang relationship, and it’s fun to watch her play off of Robert’s performance. Finally, new to the core staring cast is Don Cheadle in place of Terrance Howard as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes. Don gives a good enough performance with the material he is given, but for continuity’s sake, I’d preferred Terrance Howard in his original role. It’s a shame that Marvel couldn’t work out a deal in time with Howard to get him back for the second film, and I can imagine it might have been a bit confusing for folks to see a different actor in the part (some people might not have even known it was the same person). In the supporting roles we have Mickey Rourke as the primary antagonist, Ivan Vanko. Mickey is certainly capable of delivering a good ‘bad-ass’ performance, and he does well enough — again, with the material he is given — but it falls a bit flat due to the layout of the movie (more on that later). As most of the guys know, Scarlett Johansson is also in this movie as the bad-ass Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow. Her performance is pretty secretive, and tame throughout most of the movie, but when she unleashes towards the end it’s pretty impressive. Her character is worthy of a bit more development, should it come across in future movies. Then we have Sam Rockwell, playing Justin Hammer; our resident prick of the movie. Sam is seemingly a great guy, and in seeing him play suck a whimpy pain in the ass I almost would have rather seen someone else that I didn’t like as much play this part, because I wouldn’t want Sam the actor to come across as an ass. You kind of get a sense of it in the trailer, but in the movie he’s just really a character with no redeeming qualities. Still, Sam does a good job portraying Justin Hammer for what it’s worth, and it’s nice seeing him on screen regardless (note: if you haven’t do so already, go watch Sam in the film ‘Moon‘). Sam Jackson is in here as Nick Fury, but has fairly brief screen time. Sam Jackson is… well… Sam Jackson, except in this movie he sadly doesn’t throw around ‘mofo’ bombs left, and right. Finally, in a smaller role we have Jon Favreau himself back as Tony Stark’s body guard, Happy Hogan. Although the role is small in comparison, he has a lot more screen time this time in Iron Man 2, and it’s great to see him in front of the camera as well.

The rest of the film’s technical aspects are all spot on the money, especially for a such a short time in-between films as previously mentioned. As with Iron Man, Jon Favreau has proven to be a very solid director for this type of film. Retaining a similar look as the first movie, the film continues to be colorful, and full of great camera movement. And also like the first film, while the circumstances Tony Stark finds himself in are dire, there is still an air of fun throughout the movie, so that it doesn’t take itself that seriously (i.e. drunken Iron Man dancing), while not compromising the integrity of the film. The special effects deserve special mention this time around as well, with the awesome suit effects once again being amazing to behold this time around as well. While most special effects heavy movies now-a-days seem to have some shots that just seem terrible in comparison to the rest of the movie, most of the sfx shots in Iron Man 2 seem consistent across the board, and pretty damn good as a body of work. I also dug the score this time around a bit more than in the original. The music in Iron Man had just a little bit too much of tepid Hollywood rock and roll songs (outside of the cuts contributed to the sound track from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne), but in in this movie everything just seems amped up on the audio front, which was a welcome change.

Given that Marvel wanted this movie out in two years, the people involved with this project got a lot right here. This could have easily been a train wreck of a movie, had potentially other people been involved. That said, as hinted at above, this isn’t a film that blows the first one out of the water, as it arguably should have. With all these different plot elements going on you don’t really get a granular attention to detail on each of the respective plot elements. For example, Mickey Rourke I believe had more than enough talent in him to pull off a great Iron Man franchise villain. You can see this within the first few minutes of the movie, with him lamenting over his father. Instead, he’s relegated to two fairly brief fight sequences, and the rest of the time spent in captivity, or behind a computer. He also says very little in the film, and when he does you can barely understand him through a thick imitated Russian accent. It’s really tough to find a reason to sympathize with him, since he’s a potentially good person inadvertently driven to madness by our protagonist (i.e. Alfred Molina in Spider-Man 2). The result of this is Iron Man not having a truly worthy opponent in the film, which is a bit of a let down. Other actors suffer a similar fate due to overcrowding. Characters like Black Widow (Johansson), and Nick Fury (Jackson) aren’t completely fleshed out, so we are left wanting more from them but there simply isn’t enough time in a two hour movie for all of these elements. Not to mention the fact that if you look at each actor in this cast, even the smallest roles are filled with A-list talent.

If the plot was more streamlined then perhaps this, and the individual aspects of the movie not gelling as well as the first film may not have been an issue. Did we really need War Machine in this movie? Well, was it great seeing him team up with Iron Man? Absolutely; it’s geek fodder. Seriously, they were fighting mechs in the middle of a replicated Japanese forest with Cherry Blossoms blooming. If that’s not straight geek porno, I don’t know what is. But then look at the context. In the film War Machine comes together as James Rhodes stealing an older Iron Man suit (that he mysteriously knows how to operate perfectly) after stopping Tony on a drunken torrent in his home during a birthday party, and then delivering it to appease the U.S. government. The suit is subsequently outfitted with all sorts of guns, and presented at an expo with Rhodes piloting. Boom, War machine is ‘born’. Seriously? I would have much rather preferred the original premise from the comic books, where War Machine is born out of necessity after Tony Stark succumbs to alcoholism, which is the ‘Demon in a Bottle’ story; arguably the most powerful of the Iron Man series. I’m not saying that we should have gotten Demon in a Bottle in Iron Man 2 (I’d prefer if they closed the trilogy with that in Iron Man 3), but the story is a bit too spectacular for it’s own good. If the standard running time for a movie was three hours, and the audience could sit through it, then it may have worked out better. It all simply did not come together as well as the first Iron Man did, and it’s a real shame.

In retrospect, despite the issues, the bottom line is if this movie is worth your time, and money. In my opinion, I believe it is. While it wasn’t as ‘good’ as a movie as Iron Man 1, it was certainly as ‘entertaining’ as the first movie. We’ve seen far bigger disasters, especially in the recent trend of comic book to film translations. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be saying the word disaster in this review. It was a great film, if perhaps slightly compromised by a rushed schedule, and also by an incredible expectation from the public for this to be even better than the first movie was. This let down could potentially be what’s affecting the movie being reviewed marginally lower than the first movie, but it is what it is. I feel that Jon, and crew delivered the absolute best movie they could in two years. I’m still relieved that it was this good, as I was hoping for the best, and expecting the worst.

The biggest endorsement I can give a movie is stating that I’m looking forward to the home video release, and such is the case with Iron Man 2. I am also looking forward to Iron Man 3. All parties have already indicated that they’re on board, for a likely 2013 release. Now a lot is happening in-between now and then, with the upcoming Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers films. The impact of these three movies can change the landscape in which Iron Man 3 would take place greatly, but hopefully the crew will have enough time this time to plan accordingly, and I have full confidence that they’ll deliver at the very least a movie worth my time. Jon Favreau has already indicated that Mandarin could very well be the main villain, and there have been also hints that the Demon in a Bottle story could also be addressed as well. Based on what we’ve seen in Iron Man 1 & 2, that’s a lot to took forward to from this franchise in the next film.

Rating:

8/10

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The original Mass Effect followed the tradition of BioWare’s quality in all their games.  After developing some games based on other pre-existing franchises, BioWare has branched out to create their own new intellectual properties.  Mass Effect was an amazing title with a fantastic sci-fi story / background, solid RPG mechanics, and equally as solid tactical third person action gameplay.  It easily went down as one of the best games in recent history within the RPG genre, however, despite BioWare’s pedigree not all was perfect.

Mass Effect suffered from a weak inventory system, which had a cap of 150 items.  While carrying around 150 pieces of armor, weapons, and upgrades normally wouldn’t pose an issue in some games, the issue was that most of it was crap, and you picked up a lot of crap frequently.  You’d go back to a safe ‘hub’ in the game to sell off all your wares, winding up with a large amount of money.  But then there wasn’t anything to purchase with it, since you found the ‘must have’ items for your squad in the field anyway (about 2% – 5% of the junk you find).  Then the process repeats over again where you quickly filled up to 150 items, sold most of them off — keeping the actual decent 2% of them — and then back off to the field to repeat.  Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of depth there, and by the end of the game you were a millionaire without anything to show for it.  Equally as bad were the ‘side quests’ and exploration that were aside from the main quest.  There was a fair amount of planets and locations you could explore from your ship, but in most cases those planets were just empty placeholders that had a brief description.  Some planets you could ‘scan’ to survey them for trinkets that had relevance to another side quest, or minerals you wouldn’t do anything with.  In some additional instances you could in fact land on the planet to explore, or perform a side quest, but every planet was exactly the same; barren, with maybe one mine or outpost, and every single mine and outpost looked exactly the same as the last.  Exploration was done with the M35 Mako infantry vehicle that had it’s own clunky, and at times frustrating, controls.  The main quests were the stand out in the original game, by far.

That said, despite these and some other more minor issues, Mass Effect was an absolutely fantastic game.  With a sequel to such a strong game — one with issues — you would expect the developers would listen to the gaming community’s complaints about the first game and address it in the second game.  Some developers do seem work in a bubble, and technically we — the consumers — aren’t owed anything per se, but did BioWare listen to the gamers, and come back with an even better title in Mass Effect 2?  The answer is a resounding: YES!  If they weren’t listening to the gamers, then they sure as hell saw the same flaws we did in the first game.  They’ve absolutely come back and blown away all expectations with a more focused title that improves on nearly all aspects of the original game.

Presentation

As with Mass Effect, and BioWare’s other titles, their presentation only gets stronger with Mass Effect 2.  The menus, HUD, and the rest of the interface in the game are top notch.  Also improved (read: gone) are the annoying elevator rides, and sluggish transitions from the original in-between scenes.  There are still load screens of course, but I’d prefer them to some of the other transitions of the original game (not to mention elevator rides in the first game glitching out with a frozen squad stuck in them).

One great new feature the developers added into the game is the ability to import save games from Mass Effect into Mass Effect 2.  This brings along your character’s appearance, Paragon / Renegade status, resources (higher level and money result in larger starting bonus for Shepard in ME2), and most importantly: decisions made in the first game.  This results in a highly personalized experience unlike a lot of other games out there.

No real complaints or additional detailed observations here beyond the obvious, when you’re playing you get a feel of not only playing an A+ premium title, and an improved game overall.

Story

One of the main things the original Mass Effect is known for is establishing a great sci-fi feel, and mythos that served as the background to the events in the game.  Mass Effect 2 picks up directly where Mass Effect left off, and within the first 10 minutes of the game completely blows you away with it’s setup of the story in this chapter of the Mass Effect trilogy.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to talk about specifics without spoiling a fantastic story, but let’s say that it is even better than the first game.  This is especially commendable given that this is the middle chapter in a trilogy, and middle chapters always have a tougher time standing out in a lot of situations (sans Empire Strikes Back).

Outside of the excellent main storyline itself, some of the standouts here with the story telling approach BioWare took this time is that there is a sense of urgency throughout the whole game.  It’s widely known throughout the game that you are putting together a team for a suicide mission, and you must prepare yourself as well as possible before proceeding to the end of the game.  If you don’t, you and your squad will die.  Even more urgent, is that deaths during the final portions of the game are permanent, and will directly affect Mass Effect 3 with these characters not being available for play.  This sense of personalization and urgency is absolutely amazing, and few games have been able to pull this off, if ever.  Knowing that your Shepard can permanently die drives you to do as much as you can throughout the game to prepare yourself, so this is a great example of a great story supporting great gameplay.

Also fantastic this time is the side quests, and their related stories; especially as it relates to your team mates.  Side quests are still not incredibly important to the main story, but they do give you some background and have more relevance / impact than in the first game by far.  Mass Effect also did go into the personal lives of your team mates, but this game takes it even further with the loyalty side quest missions, in depth character stories, scripting, and more.  Needless to say, this level of polish is rare in gaming.

My only minor complaint here is while your decisions in the game have a large effect on how the events in the game take place, the Paragon / Renegade system (covered in gameplay) — as in the first Mass Effect — do not exactly have a large part changing the core events of the game.  They simply serve as a means to open up dialog options which ultimately lead you to the same goal, albeit with a different in-game character performance presentation.  Hard to complain about this level of greatness, especially given that there are such solid vocal performances to back up the story, but it would have been nice to have the Paragon / Renegade system impact the story a bit more.

Graphics

The graphics in Mass Effect 2 are stunning.  Continuing the great aesthetic look brought to us in Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 is also powered by a better version of the amazing Unreal Engine 3.  Largely, the same design elements are here from the first game, but they are just better in this game.  Environments are gorgeous, graphics effects are top notch, and the textures / artwork are very impressive throughout.

Perhaps the largest area you will notice an improvement in is the character models.  Yes, Mass Effect had GREAT looking models, but this game will blow you away.  All of the characters (sans a customized or female Shepard) are absolutely mind blowingly detailed, and all characters (including the customized and female Shepards) have many more facial animations than in the first game.  This results in a deeper level of immersion during the conversation pieces, especially when combined with the dynamic camera angles during conversations.  One of the best character models I have ever seen in any video game belongs to Mass Effect 2′s Miranda  Lawson.  Modeled after real life actress Yvonne Strahovski, it’s an incredible technological achievement to see her brought to life with real-time graphics.

With the Unreal Engine 3.5 — arguably one of the best engines available right now — you’re talking about a game that looks incredible, but more importantly, runs incredible on a lot of systems, even without bleeding edge hardware.  It’s really fantastic that the level of detail you’re seeing in this game is possible, at such high frame rates.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Apple held their latest media event yesterday for the launch of their new pseudo tablet device, the Apple iPad.  I think it’s a bit telling that before the event actually took place there was more hype around the fact that people were expecting an iPhone ’4′ announcement, and / or AT&T exclusivity expiration, but that’s another story…

In any event Apple did indeed finally reveal their long hinted at tablet device.  So now that the details are out, what’s the consensus?  Sure, just like every other Apple device launch event, the fan-boys and technologists gather at the Church of Jobs, kneel at his pews, and wait to behold the second coming of any Apple ‘Jesus’ Device 2.0.  Personally, I am completely unimpressed with the device, and there are a lot of people around the internet (Apple fan-boys and otherwise) that feel the same way.

Despite of what I think about Apple, along their ridiculous software and related policies, I will say one thing about them: they make gorgeous hardware.  I cannot — nor will not — deny this arguable fact; not to mention they make a great MP3 player (albeit bound to atrocious iTunes software).  They have a design aesthetic unlike most major hardware manufacturers in the industry.  So, as it relates to the iPad, I don’t have an issue with the hardware per se (outside of two points mentioned below) so much as I have an issue with their software decisions.

I’m sure you’ve all seen plenty of coverage around the launch, and are already privy to all the features of the iPad.  So, I’ll go straight into my discrepancies with this product:

Operating System – ok seriously Apple, seriously??  Maybe asking for Mac OSX would be a bit much, granted, but what about at least a ‘lite’ version of OSX?  No, instead we get a glorified version of the iPod Touch OS with a new skin slapped onto it to make it appear as if it is all that different from their mobile OS.  This is an absolute joke.  Sure, I can run iPod Touch / iPhone apps and blow them up to 2X their native resolution.  Wonderful!  But really, who gives a shit?  If I’m buying something larger than an iPhone I want it to absolutely blow it away in terms of functionality, not just have a super large screen and an app to draw with my fingers.  This was an absolutely terrible let down.

No Flash – yes, everyone has security discrepancies with Flash, but let’s face it: it’s a web standard.  This continues Apple’s now long running tradition of not having Flash on their mobile devices, but what’s the point of having a nice big 9″ LCD screen to browse the web with, when I’m missing a huge chunk of the content due to not having Flash?  ‘Good move’ there guys.

No Multi-tasking – I know this kind of ties into the OS, but it’s so bad it deserves it’s own mention.  If this is supposed to be a tablet computer of sorts, can’t all modern — even portable — computers multi-task now-a-days?  That’s not too much to ask, is it?  Oh wait, I apologize, I forgot we were dealing with the Apple’s fabulous iPhone OS here.

AT&T Data Plan – you would think that Apple would start to distance themselves at least a bit from AT&T considering future events (read: iPhone exclusivity loss), but the decision to partner with them again on a data plan just for the iPad is just nuts.  As it stands AT&T is the only partner right now if you want mobile data usage, using one of two pre-paid AT&T plans.  $14.99 a month for 250 MB of data, or $29.99 a month for unlimited data, which mind you isn’t unlimited (capped at 5 GB).  All this along with being stuck with ‘more bars in more places‘.  Le sigh…

Software Keyboard – now this one I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t for one small detail.  I’d want to lay this thing down flat to type on a keyboard, considering it’s a 9″ LCD and I am not a giant.  But the problem is since the back bezel is curved when you lay it down on a surface it rocks slightly, depending on the surface you’re using.  This was a poor choice, and rather than sticking to their ‘everything is curved’ aesthetic they should have make it completely flat.

No Stylus Pen (by default) – that’s right folks, you have to use your fingers.  Sure, that’s not so bad, and there’s multi-touch and all that crap, but what about that fancy drawing app they showed off?  Sure I may want to doodle with my fingers, but what about someone actually wanting to draw something serious, write a letter, or provide an electronic signature of sorts?  There are already mentions of there being a 3rd party stylus being available later on, but if it’s not a native Apple product then I’d be concerned about running a stylus across the gorgeous 9″ LCD.

I’ll leave this by saying that this product continues to show off Apple’s existing ignorance when it comes to software, and now (just a bit) in terms of their decisions with hardware design.  Yes, it is a very pretty device, and it should come in handy for something, but it fails spectacularly in very key areas, way too far to be considered a serious must have device.  Regardless of what I say the fan-boys really won’t care, and this will still be touted as a ‘netbook killer’, or ‘touch pad PC replacement’, but I don’t think there is any denying the deficiencies in this product.

Apple, you’re doing it wrong:

With the release of Version 4 to the stable channel Google has brought a good amount of fixes and improvements, but the main feature to be talked about here is extensions.  While the bleeding edge dev channel users have had this for about a month or so now, hitting the stable channel means that extensions are going ‘prime time’ for all users.  I feel a bit silly using the term prime time to describe that Google Chrome just released the extensions system to all of it’s users now with the stable channel, given the fact that in just a few weeks time there are already over 1,800 extensions as of the time of this writing.

Before I go on, I must mention that Firefox just had it’s 3.6 release.  I myself am an avid user of Firefox, and have been for a while now.  The Firefox 3.6 release is yet another solid Firefox build, with speed improvements, feature enhancements, etc.  Despite all the greatness, one big remaining issue I have with Firefox — and to be fair, most other browsers — is how it’s designed.  What I mean by that is despite the under the hood enhancements, and most importantly (IMO) tabbed browsing, today’s modern web browsers really haven’t evolved as fast as the web has.  The web has changed drastically in the past 12 years or so since going mainstream, but how much have our browsers changed with the web?

Granted, completely redefining the web browser experience is much easier said than done, and I certainly do not claim to have any idea on how to do it.  That said, what can be refined a bit easier is the browsing experience on the back end.  As this relates to the browser design I mentioned, web pages now are more complex than ever before, and we have web applications to boot.  Combine a dozen of these or so into a browser split into a dozen tabs, but still bound to just one executable process running in the background, you can have a recipe for disaster.  If one of these web apps or complex pages stalls your browser, then it starts to impact your whole browsing experience by slowing you down, or worst of all, crashing the entire browser and all it’s subsequent opened pages.  As for my personal experiences this still occurs to this day, under Firefox 3.6, and it frustrates me to no end.

This brings us back to Chrome.  Chrome splits each tab into it’s own process in the background, which while leading to higher memory usage overall (which isn’t a problem on modern systems), results in much faster overall performance, especially when coupled with the powerful webkit web rendering engine.  For all the love I have for Mozilla, I have to say I absolutely love this methodology of browser design, at least on the back end.  If one complex web application decides to stop working, then you can just deal with that one web app / tab, and not have to worry about loosing your session, or restarting your whole session over again.

Recently, although I’ve been pleased with the Firefox 3.6 beta releases, but frustrated with the overall back end design, I’ve been trying Google Chrome as my primary browser.  This is especially true once the extensions first hit the dev channel late last year.  I’ve installed about 15 extensions, trying to replicate as much functionality as I can that I had in Firefox.  Although there are some great extensions, because Chrome is so new, and the extensions themselves were just released, I don’t feel that it is currently possible to ‘extend’ Chrome to the extent that Firefox can be through it’s own addon system.  That said, it certainly is comparable to at least the core functionality of what some other browsers have through native, or extensible features.

I will say that the browsing experience is fantastic.  The browser starts up fast, renders pages fast, and does nearly everything faster than any other browser on the market currently.  Of course there are various benchmarks and articles that prove this through numbers, bar graphs, etc., but actually experiencing this first hand really leaves the impression of using a superior piece of software.

However, sadly not all in the ‘Kingdom of Chrome’ is sunshine and rainbows.  Outside of the extensions themselves needing a bit more understandable maturity, and the Chrome API itself that could be loosened up a bit more for developers (not allowing devs to change or extend the core browser tabs is a perfect example), there is one deal breaking bug that has prevented me from making the change to Chrome as my primary browser.

I am still trying to understand the root cause of this issue completely, but basically it starts with clearing your cache.  I’m the type of guy that clears my internet cache after every browsing session, usually automatically on browser close.  Now, doing this in Chrome results in strange behavior where upon relaunching the browser multiple extensions both loose their settings, and act as if it was the ‘first run’, meaning I get bombarded with pages welcoming me to the extension and explaining the functionality.  After further digging it appears that this happens specifically when the cookies are cleared, meaning that at least some of the extensions are storing their settings within the browsers cache.  Now, this does not appear to the fault of developers, but rather a deficiency in the browser itself that needs to be addressed.  Luckily, this is a known issue, and an issue that appears to be on the docket to be fixed for “Mstone-5″, which I am assuming is Chrome 5 (technical details on this can be found here).

With all of this said, regardless of this deal breaker bug, and the additions that are needed in the Chrome API for developers, I think everyone can agree that the progress the browser has made in a relatively short amount of time late last year once Chrome 4 builds had extensions is amazing.  1,800 extensions in a few weeks.  That is a sign that this is not only a great browsing platform, but the developer community is also willing to embrace Chrome.  I’m sure that things will only get better for Chrome as long as Google continues to work on the areas that the browser still needs to grow in — of which I have no doubt they will — and by 2011 we may be very well saying this was the year of Chrome.

I’ve been looking forward to this game for a while now, and this trailer does a real good job whetting our appetites.  Can’t wait for this one!

Courtesy of Destructoid: