A Summer Kiss

In the summer before I turned twelve, I spent five weeks at my Great Aunt’s house out on Briar Lake. It was fun enough, all things considered. I mean, my great aunt and uncle didn’t have kids so their house wasn’t exactly thrilling but there was plenty to do on the lake and there was a movie theater in town for nights when I got really bored. I’d spent time up there off and on with my family over the years so I knew a few kids nearby but nobody I considered a close friend. That is, until that summer.

Briar Lake was tucked away in an area Philadelphians looking to get out of the city would call “up-there” and New Yorkers referred to as “the boonies”. It was a nice town though, especially in the summer. The kind of place where parents let their kids go out after dark and didn’t worry. My aunt’s house was one of five that sat along the eastern shore of the lake, a section of which curved inward, forming a sort of natural cul-de-sac. My first week was spent mostly swimming, I saw two movies, managed to put in a little time with the Super Nintendo I brought along, and flipped through a few well-worn chapters of my copy of A Wrinkle In Time. One night after dinner I was sitting out on the back deck, overlooking the lake, when I noticed a girl two houses down doing the same thing. The next day I was swimming and found myself out there with the same girl. Her name was Tommy, at least that’s what she said her nickname was and that everybody called her that. Whether it was because her older brothers thought it was funny to call her a boy’s name or she used to be a tomboy, I don’t know, but it wasn’t until years later when I caught myself thinking about her that I realized I didn’t know her real name. Only the pet-name she told me.

She was staying there with her family too, just for the summer. Her father was in the air force so they moved around a lot, she said. For the next few weeks we spent every day together, sometimes from morning till night. Neither of us had a backyard to pitch a tent but we did camp out one night on my family’s pontoon. There are moments in my life, times that are burned in my memory and when I close my eyes I can feel myself transported back to them. That night was one of those moments. I’d never had a girlfriend before. Frankly, I hadn’t thought about it until then. We stayed up all night talking, she told me about all the places she’d lived, we thought about what we’d like to be when we grew up, that sort of stuff. The sun came up on the lake and brought with it the most incredible red glow that burst across the surface of the water. This was the first time I fell in love.

Later that week we all went to the county park, her family and mine, to see the 4th of July fireworks. We set ourselves up on a blanket, away from the others, on a nearby hill. As the sky was lit up by brilliant blasts of blue, red, and white, we lied there together. In the dark, occasionally lit by fireworks and lightning bugs, we kissed. It was my first time.

That summer came to a close and, with it, my first romance. I’m not sure what ever happened to her but I take comfort knowing what we had was special, untainted by the things that complicate adult relationships. Few things can take me back to my childhood like thinking about that summer, when feelings were confusing but pure and exciting. Still, I find myself occasionally taken back to how it felt to be young- the smell of a box of crayons, for instance, triggers a sense memory in me and I am suddenly in touch with that inner child we hear so much about. Likewise, nothing brings with it the joys of childhood like the delicious taste of the new Pop Tarts Oatmeal Delights. Available now in Mapley Brown Sugar and Strawberry flavors, Pop Tarts Oatmeal Delights reminds us all of the simple wonders of being a kid, whether it's flashing back to your first kiss, that time you threw up in front of your 6th grade crush, or that Christmas when you got the thing you really wanted. They’re warm, comforting, and most of all, delicious. The hearty oatmeal crust is a complex melange of cinnamon and spices giving way to a sweet strawberry filling, making breakfast time something worth getting up for. One bite and you’ll feel like a kid again!

Twin Peaks Valentine's Day Cards

Some Valentine's Day cards to celebrate my love of Twin Peaks. NOTE: I am aware that Cooper takes his coffee black but he's waxing poetic!

Okamiden Review

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Okamiden is a fitting tribute to the end of the much-beloved Nintendo DS. Arguably the system’s swan-song, the game is an example of what is possible near the end of a device’s lifecycle. Packed inside its cartridge is a sprawling adventure lasting more than twenty hours in a fully realized, beautifully cel-shaded, 3D world. The title is an apt Japanese pun combining the name Okami with the word “Gaiden” meaning side-story. While Okamiden works well as an addendum to the original tale of Amaterasu, make no mistake, it is a worthy sequel all its own. For being on a handheld, nothing about the game feels limited as the move to the DS has been kind to the series. It might not be as long as the original but there’s still plenty of depth with lots to explore in the land of Nippon.



The most striking feature of the game is its ability to maintain the soul of the series by faithfully duplicating its iconic art style, quirky sense of humor, and immeasurable charm. Set a mere nine months after the events of Okami, the child of Amaterasu, Chibiterasu, descends to Earth in order to rid the land of evil. It seems people have, once again, lost faith in the Gods so its up to Chibi along with several partners met along the way, to battle demons and restore peace to the world. While the story may take a few missteps, it is largely an enjoyable experience, driving players forward on the lengthy adventure. It’s filled with unforgettable characters both big and small and takes players on a journey through locales both familiar and strange.

In fact the first few hours may feel a bit too familiar, almost to the game’s detriment, retreading old ground and revisiting many of the same locations from the first Okami. Fans of the original might be overwhelmed by a nagging sense of déjà vu. However, Okamiden does manage to step out of the shadow of its predecessor and soon ventures forth into new territory.



When the first Okami hit the PS2 in 2006, it quickly became a cult classic, garnering a devout fan following but lackluster sales. In 2008, the game was given a second chance when it was ported to the Wii and the game’s brush mechanic was translated to the system’s remote control. However, Okamiden makes the best use of the drawing technique, pairing the DS’s touch screen with the Celestial Brush makes the series feel right at home on Nintendo’s handheld.

Many of the classic brush techniques return. At any time, Chibi can summon the powers of the Celestial Brush by clicking the L or R buttons and drawing on-screen. Cutting through an enemy or obstacle is as easy as drawing a horizontal slash. Cherry bombs can be placed by drawing a circle with a line for a fuse. The mechanic is far more responsive and much easier to pull off than its PS2 and Wii incarnations. However, with the DS comes a loss of analog controls as the system’s d-pad manages Chibi’s movement around the environment. It’s not ideal and, at first, feels downright clunky. Yet over time it’s easy to adapt and isn’t much of a problem. That being said it’s hard not to imagine how much better it would control on a 3DS with the circle pad.



In addition to drawing brush techniques, the touch screen is used to guide Chibi’s pals through various environments by creating a path for them to follow. It’s a nice addition regardless of being previously seen in other games. Yet despite encountering several partners along the way, they mostly come equipped with the same abilities including the guide mechanic. While some can direct water, others fire and lightning, it’s essentially the same thing and would have been nice to see a little more variety. Still, the characters themselves are a great ensemble and lend a layer of depth to the storytelling.

Of course, Chibiterasu and his cohorts run into their share of boss battles and Okamiden manages to create a few memorable encounters thanks to some clever and imaginative enemy design. The boss fights use the various brush techniques to their strengths, sometimes forcing players to juggle between several abilities. However, some of the ordinary combat can feel repetitive.



The game follows the same fighting design as the original, pitting players in self-contained arenas with a number of lesser enemies. Rather than being rewarded with experience points like most RPGs, battles offer money which can be traded in for weapon upgrades, items, and learning new brush techniques. It’s a solid system and works well though it can be exploited from time to time. Many enemies can be bested by repeatedly using the Slash technique, spamming the L or R button without giving them a chance to recover. It’s when the game throws in enemies which are immune to some moves that the combat offers a challenge.



Okamiden is a testament to the quality of games which greet the end of a console. It’s a tribute to the system’s strengths, pushing as much power as possible from the little portable. Throughout the game, it’s easy to feel a sense of awe at what the developers were able to accomplish on Nintendo’s handheld. The story is not perfect, even feeling artificially prolonged as it meanders a bit during the third act and old tropes of Eastern game design such as revisiting all the previous bosses rear their ugly head. But it’s easy to overlook such shortcomings when the experience is filled with charming characters and an engaging narrative wrapped around solid game mechanics and the wonderful Ukiyo-e inspired art.

Killzone 3 Review

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The story of Killzone 3 picks up mere moments after the events of the last game. Series protagonist Tomas “Sev” Sevchenko, Rico, and the rest of the ISA forces are left stranded behind enemy lines, deep inside hostile Helghan territory. The third installment in Sony’s vicious sci-fi shooter is a direct continuation of the ongoing space saga, yet players new to the franchise need not worry. While Killzone 3 tells a more ambitious tale, the storytelling is not necessarily its strong suit. Long-time fans of the franchise might be pleased with the game’s conclusions but those simply looking for great moment-to-moment combat and a thrill-ride of roller-coaster proportions are going to get a lot out of the experience. Developer Guerrilla Games puts its best boot forward when it puts players on the ground, gun in hand, chaos reigning, against an army of red-eyed soldiers.



Killzone has quickly become the Playstation’s hallmark shooter, packing all of Sony’s recent technological initiatives into one box such as Move and 3D support. As far as your eyes and ears are concerned, Killzone 3 is a sensational treat. There’s substance to this world with many layers and no detail left unchecked. Ash floats through the air, snow crunches under the weight of footsteps, the metallic grown and pneumatic hiss of the Helghast jetpack, and the satisfying twangs of the game’s weaponry are parts of a much greater audio-visual landscape. Of course, the sequel has seen some much-needed tweaks and improvements to its core mechanics which make actually playing the game a more enjoyable experience.



Controls feel much better this time around, fixing the slow and down-right laggy shooting of Killzone 2. Things are much snappier and more responsive. While the combat feels better, the same can’t be said about the game’s use of six-axis for turning valves and placing explosives. Luckily, the game’s cover system has also seen improvement. Moving in and out of cover is much easier while running towards safety and hitting the trigger results in a nifty slide which now feels like a no-brainer and is extremely satisfying when you pull it off.

Critics of the last game’s setting felt there were too many destroyed cities in varying shades of brown and grey. Killzone 3 fixes that and offers more variety in terms of environments as well as gameplay. From Helghan jungles to snow-covered factories, the game features more locales in a diverse color palette. Vehicle missions break up the action and offer some variety in terms of gameplay, almost to the detriment of the experience. While the basic gunplay of Killzone 3 is finely tuned, certain vehicle sections make the game feel unbalanced. The campaign is pockmarked with sections where the difficulty suddenly skyrockets. Generally these were relegated to a few on-rails sections piloting the gun of a ship or tank where I found myself dying without really knowing why. In these moments, it felt more could have been done to give players some direction.



While the action is intense it is often cut short, falling victim to the hackneyed storytelling. Throughout the campaign, Sev will clear only a room or two before the screen fades to black to begin another cutscene. It constantly disrupts the flow of the experience and one can only guess there had to be a more elegant way to tell the story. It’s a shame considering how much effort Guerrilla puts into creating its first-person perspective. Sev controls with a sense of body and weight and is not merely a moving camera. By jumping back and forth like that, the game detracts from the immersive quality of the first-person perspective the studio so expertly crafted.

Apart from Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of the Helghast arms dealer, Jordan Stahl, most of the cast is forgettable. The story falls flat because it is filled with unlikeable characters which is a shame considering the potential in the desperate situation between Sev and Rico. However, by the tenth time Rico disobeys an order and runs head-first into a fight, players are just left rolling their eyes. Other story issues include an odd moment where a scene from early in the game is revisited but with different results. It’s a jarring oversight that makes the whole thing feel like an after thought. While the stakes are high, the gravity of the story never hits home which hindered my desire to press on. However make no mistake, while the storytelling may be underwhelming, actually playing the game is an entirely different, worthwhile, and enjoyable experience. The combat feels great and responsive which is why the online multiplayer is such an addictive feature.



Five soldier types make up the online classes which include the Marksman; a sniper class, Medic, Engineer, Infiltrator, and Tactician. Each class feels unique and if teammates do their job, using their soldier’s abilities, it really can turn the tide of an online battle. A leveling system is in place, allowing players to unlock new weapons and upgrade the abilities of each class. Want to increase the speed of repairs? Drops some points into the Engineer's repair tool, and so forth. While these classes are fun, it’s frustrating to see guns can’t move between different classes. If you like playing as a medic but don’t enjoy the three primary weapons available to that class, you’re out of luck. It would have been nice to mix and match guns to the various classes. The series’ trademark mode, Warzone, is back. This online mode is a mix of several game types such as Team Deathmatch (referred to in-game as Bodycount), a king-of-the-hill variant, capture the flag, and more which changes several times throughout one session. It keeps things fresh and can be incredibly rewarding.

There’s no denying the people behind Killzone 3 not only understand the architecture of the PS3, but get what it takes to make a beautiful game with jaw-dropping setpieces and a quality multiplayer component. While it’s a shame to see the single-player story get bogged down with so many issues, there’s no denying there are so many things to love about Killzone 3 then there are things to hate. The series keeps upping the ante in terms of action as well as quality which makes me hopeful to see just how far this franchise can go.

LittleBigPlanet 2 Review

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With the original LittleBigPlanet, developer Media Molecule sought to create a platform for user-generated content, putting the same tools they used to craft levels into the hands of their users. Over two million levels later, the community of LittleBigPlanet continues to grow and amaze. For LittleBigPlanet 2, the creators haven’t torn it all down and started over. Instead, they’ve made calculated, thoughtful improvements and additions to the online integration, creation tools, underlying game mechanics, and crafted one hell of a story mode along the way. The sequel’s first impression might seem awfully familiar and doesn’t pack the same awe-inspiring punch as the original but its unrelenting charm will make you fall in love all over again. LittleBigPlanet 2 continues the first game’s legacy of impeccable style and unbound creativity.



Everybody’s favorite woven wonder, Sackboy, returns and its up to him, with the help of "The Alliance", to put an end to the Negativatron; a hulking purple vacuum-like beast that’s destroying the world. The story mode is more in-depth this time around and includes some hilarious characters such as Avalon Centrifuge, a would-be superhero with a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for hands-free microphones. The structure is mostly unchanged from the first game. Media Molecule levels serve as great examples of what’s possible with the tools at hand. Players collect prize bubbles and other objects which can later be used in the creation of their own levels.

LittleBigPlanet 2 has some new tricks up its sleeve. With an improved toolset, the ladies and gents of Media Molecule have created levels which range from bounce pad-laden platformers, cart racers, Galaga-style shoot-em-ups, and nearly everything in-between. The addition of new toys such as Sackboy’s grappling hook make for some interesting new gameplay concepts as well.



Along with all the new in-game objects and abilities, the game has an improved online experience. I usually play these games on my own and completed the first LittleBigPlanet flying solo. However, after being prompted by random players to join my game I gave in and accepted the request. It was then I realized, all this time, I was playing LittleBigPlanet the wrong way. Playing cooperatively with other players was a revelation. There’s a genuine sense of camaraderie and satisfaction as my fellow Sackfolk and I bested some of the game’s more-challenging levels. For LBP veterans this isn’t exactly news but I found the fun-factor grew exponentially with every person added. Pure and simple, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a great game when played cooperatively and the pre-level prompts to join random players put co-op front and center. Sadly, during the game’s initial launch, a nasty bug often prevented online play possible as an infinite loading glitch brought the fun to a standstill.

While the story levels of LittleBigPlanet 2 are spectacular on their own, players who only play them are missing half the point. The other half of LBP2 is online, in an ever-growing community of user-generated content where creativity, variety, and ingenuity are seemingly endless. Admittedly, any pool of user-generated content is going to have its share of duds, spam levels, and things that are just plain broken. What sets LittleBigPlanet 2 apart from the others is its use of community resources both in-game as well as out.



A new website, LBP.me offers a browser-based repository for players looking to find the latest and greatest community levels. It’s one of the best portals to support user-generated content and makes things like level discovery, reviewing, and search far easier. Players wishing Media Molecule had gone further when designing the sequel should note that LBP.me represents a seachange in the way community content will be handled from here on out and is a stunning achievement in its own right.

Create mode is still a daunting task to anybody without a few weeks to burn. Learning the complexities of the toolset is difficult despite Media Molecule’s best efforts to simplify matters. To their credit, they have actually done quite a bit to make things more stream-lined and given level makers plenty of new options such as the Creatinator and other AI additions which broaden the creators’ canvas. Still, the steep learning curve will put off many players leaving the creation mode feeling somewhat exclusionary. Thankfully, the people who can make sense of it all are doing some incredible work and the best is yet to come. Unlike many games, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a title that only gets better with age as users dig through the tools and find new uses for them.



While I still found myself occasionally falling victim to the game’s unforgiving physics and awkward sense of depth, it happened much less than ever before. Despite a random bout of clunkiness, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a great experience. Everything in the game whether its Stephen Fry’s narration or the names of levels (“Currant Affairs”? Come on, that’s great.) is designed to reenforce the cute, cuddly, quirky, and witty aesthetic that Media Molecule seems happy to foster indefinitely. Even the loading screens which pop up with phrases like “Tying up loose ends” aren’t a big deal on their own but work towards that goal. It’s the sum of countless details like this which make LittleBigPlanet 2 one of the most lovingly and expertly crafted games of recent memory.