Pockets of Sanity

Happy Leap Day

I won't be able to post on February 29th for another four years... so, uh... hi!

Lost: Via Domus Review / Impressions (Xbox 360)

I've played through the first three episodes of Lost: Via Domus for the Xbox 360.  Here are some quick impressions of what I've seen so far.

Story
The Lost creators came out recently and said that the game's story is not considered canon, which took a bit of the wind out of the sails for the game.  On top of that, I can't really say that I'm all that interested in the main character's backstory so far.  Perhaps it'll get more engaging as the game progresses.

Presentation
For me, presentation can go a long way.  24: The Game was a mediocre game boosted by its presentation which mimicked the TV show.  The same goes for Lost. Each level plays like one episode of the show, complete with "Previously on Lost" recaps at the beginning of each new level, cliffhangers at the end with the title card then suddenly flashed on the screen, etc.

Gameplay
So far I've done a lot of running around and exploring, and solved a couple of puzzles involving electrical circuits.  Mainly I've been interacting with other characters, learning backstory, and taking pictures with my character's camera (which I finally found in the plane's wreckage).  The picture taking element of the game is reminiscent of Dead Rising, which is fine.  So far I feel like the game is holding your hand a little too much at times, and yet at other times you won't have a clue as to what you're supposed to be doing.  There's a balance in there somewhere.

Graphics
Solid, but not spectacular.  The characters mostly resemble their real life counterparts, although Hurley looks a little inhuman for some reason.  Little details with the characters made me laugh heartily though.  For example, Locke will tilt his head at the end of sentences or smile inappropriately much like how he does in the series, and the programmers perfectly captured Matthew Fox's bizarre little head waggle he does sometimes when he's talking.

The environments are well done as well.  Being on the beach in the midst of the plane wreckage was a fun experience.

Sound
I don't have my surround sound set up at the moment, but I can tell that it would be rather awesome if I did.  When you're in the woods, sometimes you'll hear the sudden rush of random voices surrounding you, or the sound of the smoke monster stalking you.  I can't wait to get my sound system back up and running to really experience the game's audio.

When I was working on the game's first big puzzle, the music got so intense that I was tempted to turn it off completely.  It felt as though if I didn't complete the puzzle by the time the music hit its crescendo, the game would have ended (it didn't).  This isn't a knock on the music... it was just so intense, out of nowhere, and it was putting way too much pressure on me to perform.  Plus, in the background you could hear Michael screaming "Walt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" over and over again, which only served to ramp up the tension even further.

Voice Work
This is probably the single most disappointing aspect of the game.  If you look at some of the other big licensed movie/TV games from the past few years, Lost is the absolute worst in this department.  The Sopranos game got many of its big names to provide voices, From Russia With Love got Sean freakin' Connery to return to his 007 role, The Godfather got Robert Duvall and James Caan to do voice work, and EVERYONE provided voices for the 24 game.  Here, only six of the cast members provide their own voices (Ben, Mikhail, Sun, Desmond, Claire and Tom).

The alternate voices provided are adequate, although Locke sounds like a wise old Native American man.  Michael's voice is the closest to being accurate.  Jack sounds close, Kate sounds somewhat generic, and Hurley only really sounds close when he says "dude".

(Speaking of Hurley, an interview with Jorge Garcia in August of 2007 about the video game revealed an interesting bit of info.  When asked if he'd done any work for the game, his response was: "No, I haven’t done anything for the game yet. I haven’t been contacted about doing voice or anything."  Were cast members even asked to work on the game?)

Achievements
Not a lot of thought went into most of these. Most of them are gained by simply playing the game.  Jumpstart the next part of the story and you get an achievement.  Whee.  On the other hand, at least they're easy to get.  You don't have to collect 1,000,000 coconuts or anything to get 15 achievement points.

Final Thoughts
I'm really enjoying the experience so far.  And you kinda need to approach Lost: Via Domus as an experience rather than a hardcore video game.  As a game, most will probably find it somewhat lacking.  But as an interactive companion to the television show, it's a blast.

William Shatner is Canadian

Google Me

Head over to the Googles and search for "Robin Meade hot tub porn".  Go ahead, I'll wait...

What's the first site that comes up in your search?  That's right... this one.  Pockets of Sanity baby.  Your Robin Meade hot tub porn headquarters.

Now if only there was only footage somewhere of Robin Meade in a hot tub.

Mini Mall Dude Meets Weather Guy

Remember the Montgomery mini-mall dude?  Well he's an internet sensation.  Recently he hung out with the Fox 6 news team in Birmingham.

Movies That Should Be on DVD: February '08 Edition

I'm making a second pass through my video tape collection as I prepare to put everything in storage, and again I'm baffled by all the stuff that's still not available on DVD yet.

So here are five titles that have yet to appear on DVD, but need to:

The Compleat Beatles - While this documentary about the greatest band of all time has been overshadowed by the exhaustive Beatles Anthology, it's still a good view.  Malcolm McDowell narrates.

Weird Al Yankovic: The Compleat Al - This mock documentary/music video collection was released in 1985 by CBS/FOX Video and has never been released on any format since.  The music videos in the feature have seen the light of day in various DVD releases over the years, but the actual mockumentary content hasn't.  I'm assuming this is simply a rights issue over some sort of nonsense (perhaps the Michael Jackson sequence?).

Scavenger Hunt - I loved this zany comedy movie as a kid.  I'm not sure how it holds up today, but I'd think there would be some kind of market for it.  Just check out its crazy huge 1970's almost-famous cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vincent Price, Dirk Benedict, Willie Aames, Tony Randall, Richard Benjamin, James Coco, Scatman Crothers, Ruth Gordon, Cloris Leachman, Cleavon Little, Roddy McDowell, Richard Mulligan, and Meat Loaf!

The Magnificent Ambersons - I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the much-written about second film from Orson Welles, but it does have a fascinating history behind it (devious studio meddling and recutting, against Welles' wishes for example), and it deserves to be preserved on DVD.

The Proposition - Movies from the late 90's seem to get the shaft when it comes to DVD, as the market wasn't big enough to sustain smaller titles back then.  And now no one seems to want to go back and revisit them.  This engaging morality tale starring Kenneth Branagh was originally released by Polygram, which I think was swallowed up by Universal, but I'm not 100% positive about that.

How He Move

You might have noticed that the posts 'round these parts have become less meaty lately.  Well there's good reason for that.  There's a ton of stuff going on right now and well, it's sucking the lifeforce out of me.  The only way to recover is to blog less, it seems.

Seriously, there's a ton of new developments going on.  Remember when I said I'd never move again?  Well, I've moved out of my apartment, and now have until the end of March to get all 17 tons of my stuff out of there and into storage.  Oh, and I have a house to help get ready for sale in today's stupendously awesome housing market.

So here's a quick rundown of events that I've had no time to blog about lately...

Across the Universe -> A movie with huge potential that unfortunately tried way too damn hard and ended up annoying the shit out of me to the point where I walked away from it about an hour in.  Moulin Rouge-esque.  Blecch-esque.

HD DVD is Dead -> I hate being an early adopter.

33rd Birthday -> Surprise Playstation 3 gift.  Awesome Blu Ray/upconverting DVD machine.  But gaming?  Ugh.

Huge Garage sale -> Very successful.  How do you deal with people who don't speak the language though?

B-52s Concert -> Less said the better.

That's all for now.  I'll continue to post videos and little tidbits here and there.  Trust me, you'll enjoy them.

Sexual Harassment: Yes or No? - Something is Different

Is this inappropriate?  You decide.  Then, let a "lawyer" tell you the "law".

Let Me Stop Stallin'

Fallin' is a "duet" of sorts with the groups De La Soul and Teenage Fanclub, which appeared on the soundtrack for the 1993 film Judgment Night.  Every song on the soundtrack was a collaboration between rock and hip hop artists.

I'm not necessarily a fan of either group, but something about this song digs into my brain.  And I'd never seen the video before.  Here, let it infect you too.

Cue Roy Orbison

So the writer's strike is over.

Meh.

You'll remember that I got rather worked up when the strike began.  I was all pissed off and "how dare they!" and "stupid bastards!" and other such nonsense.  But aside from being just a tad miffed that 24 probably won't be back until 2009, the strike had no effect on me whatsoever.

In fact, I was starting to enjoy the chaos of it all.  Award shows crashing and burning, everyone bitching about there being nothing but reality shows yet watching them anyway... at least it shook things up a little.

If I recall correctly, back when the writers went on strike in the late 1980s, 8% of the television viewing audience never came back once that strike ended.  It'll be interesting to see how many people found something better to do this time around.