MichaelandChrissy.com

I was asking Chrissy about whether or not Aiden had his bath, since I usually give him a bath but he was already in bed. Chrissy said yes, but it was a quick one because he pulled the last toy out early. I thought this was very funny, since I had come up with the term “the last toy” when we first started giving Aiden baths in the tub (but she had never used the term before).

Once Aiden was big enough to play in the whole tub (as opposed to the infant tub that we would sit in the bath tub), he would play with all of his bath toys while we washed him up. Eventually, he would find the plug and pull it out, allowing all of the water to drain out. I named the plug “the last toy”, since once he started playing with it, the bath was over. It was the last toy that he could play with before the bath was over.

Now that I’ve beat half of the Transformers Movie game, I’ve been revisiting the different areas that I’ve already beaten. There are several areas to explore: the suburbs, the Hoover Dam, and the city. There are six chapters in each storyline, and each area comprises two chapters. You can go back to each chapter to find items and play mini-games.

There is a lot to do once you go back. There are 100 yellow cubes to collect in each chapter, five skill points to earn, and three mini-games to play. The timed mini-games are Racing (run through the area hitting all the nav-points), Sumo (through all opponents out of the ring), and Destroy (kill all opponents). These get more difficult as the chapters increase.

Skill points are earned in Skid, Throw, Jump, and Speed. You can get these at any time, not necesarily after the end of the chapter. For example, Speed is earned by going fast for a significant amount of time. Throw is my favorite: in robot mode, you pick up and item and throw it. If it stays in the air longer than timer, then you win. It’s fun to throw different stuff down the block, like the hamburger on top of the “Chip Chase” fast-food restaurant.

The problem is that you can’t tell what you’ve got already. There is no way to display accomplishments or items collected. I may have earned four of the five skill points in the third chapter, but I can’t tell. I can’t find any more yellow cubes in the first chapter, but I don’t know how many are left. I think I got 96, but there’s no way to tell. There’s also no “x-ray vision” to find the lost ones — a power-up like the “energon scanner” in the PS2 Armada game would be very welcome.

Part of me wonders why I am bothering to go back to finish the chapters. The whole point is to unlock bonus content after you’ve completed the storyline. Unfortunately, all of the bonus content is in low resolution, best suited for television sets that console games use. Would it have killed Activision to find the high resolution images for the PC version of the game? Or if the images were too big, then how about a downloadable upgrade to provide these? There are also seven bonus videos, but they are only promos or commercials that I’ve already seen, nothing created specifically for the game. No good stuff for you!

It seems like an awful lot of effort to go through to get crappy bonuses. However, getting the bonuses does prolong game play, which isn’t terrible. I would almost say that I’ve enjoyed the mini-games and cruising the areas free-style more than playing the actual first storyline. Some of the boss battles were fun, like Shockwave (who triple-changes from a helicopter to an anti-aircraft gun to a G1-inspired robot), but the rest of the game was pretty monotonous. I’ll have to try the Decepticon storyline next, which I heard will be much more satisfying (Task: blow up 80% of the city).

I’ve finally gotten the Transformers Movie game loaded on my PC, and I have to admit that I’m fairly underwhelmed. The graphics are very good, although the backgrounds seem to have a hazy “early morning” look to them. The character models are amazingly detailed, even the “drone” characters. Boss battles are incredibly cool. However, this game is essentially a console port, and therefore has its own limitations, which almost killed it for me.

Controlling your character in vehicle mode is almost pointless. I was wondering if vehicular control would improve if I bought a game pad, but I decided against it. Each character behaves a little differently behind the wheel, with Bumblebee careening wildly at any speed while Ironhide turns like a battleship. It’s much less frustrating to run around in robot mode (which allows you to look around you, while vehicle mode has you staring straight ahead), but you move like a snail — no running for robots!

Tasks are always the same. It’s “get to this point before time runs out” or “follow that thing and kill it before it gets to where it’s going”. I’m used to elaborate quests that take hours or days to complete. If you can’t complete this one simple task, just try again. There are no power ups to make me drive faster or with more control, and I can’t level up and try again later, since there are no RPG elements here. Just try again later, better luck next time.

Your progress is only saved when you finish a goal. Some goals are impossible, like when you have to flee a fireball coming down a tunnel towards you, but your car is uncontrollable and you also have debris falling into your path (and if that doesn’t spin you into the wall, then it brings you to a complete stop). Made it past the fireball? Good, now do it five more times before you can save again!

Once I’ve played through the main storyline, I’ll go back and try to enjoy myself a little. You can hang out in some areas, enjoying the scenery or collecting glowing cubes that open bonus content, and there are ramps all over for jumping. That may be more fun than constantly racing the clock to get from point A to point B. Am I being too critical of a $20 game? Maybe. I’d be really aggravated if I paid $60 to play this one on the XBox 360.

Chrissy and I celebrated our three year anniversary on Wednesday. Aunt Cassie watched Aiden while we drove to the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in downtown Chicago. We have been to Cafe Fondue in Merrillville several times, but we have never tried any of the fondue shops in Chicago before. We expected something really nice, and that is what we got. Really nice. Click “Continue Reading” below to get the full story.

After seeing the new Transformers movie, I wanted to play the new game by Activision. They had the PS3 version on display at Botcon, and it looked really nice. I’ve been searching all over for the PC version, but I could only find the console versions. It turns out that the PC version is a Target exclusive (Target is an official sponsor for the movie), and they had it for only $19.99, which is about a third of what the console versions cost. So I picked up a copy at the Target in Munster on the way home yesterday.

The problem is that I can’t play it yet. I have chores to do… Specifically, the transcript from my Oracle deposition came in the mail, and I have to point out any errata before sending it back to the lawyers. The typist misspelled “NeuStar” about a thousand times. Honest mistake, but I have to make note of it each and every time. So when I’m done editing all 247 pages of the eight-hour deposition transcript, I’ll get to play my game. I’m sure that I’ll have something to say about it once I’m done.

On Swavek’s recommendation, I downloaded the demo for the PC version of Overlord. It has an interesting premise, not unlike Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper from 1997, where the plot revolves around destroying everything that is good so that your evil influence may grow. The difference is that Dungeon Keeper was a realtime strategy game (like Starcraft), Overlord is more of an action game. I really liked Dungeon Keeper, back in the day, so I decided to give this game a try.

You play as the “Overlord” and you progress in the game by earning better and more simultaneous minions. For example, the demo starts with five brown goblins following you around. You can command them to do your bidding as you wander through the 3D game terrain. As a reward for finishing level one, I got an additional five goblins to command. This comes in handy when you need ten simultaneous goblins to overcome a particular barrier. Later, you also get more powerful minions, since the brown goblins are the weakest type. Different types of minion allow for different abilities and immunities, but only the browns were available during the demo.

The problems I had are with the controls. The game engine seems to be based on the Fable engine (which was a fun game that I played until the end), but I didn’t have any trouble controlling my character in Fable. For the most part, your goblin horde does most of your actions for you, but they seem to have some path-finding and obstacle-avoidance issues. A tree trunk in your way will spell your doom. There are plenty of things to destroy in the terrain, but you can’t target them individually, so you have to “sweep” your goblins around the countryside and they act accordingly (breaking urns, smashing pumpkins, etc.). You do this by pointing in a given direction, and your horde rushes off that way like a flock of birds.

Sweeping seems to be the way to go when controlling your goblins, but they often miss things and there is no way to directly control their behavior (”this one goes here, that one goes there!”). To make matters worse, you can only sweep in one direction at a time. The camera angle seems to freeze when you start sweeping, so you have to let go of the sweep command for a moment, then move your character to see in another direction, and then resweep and hope that your goblins didn’t get stuck behind a log in the meantime. Personally, I think that I’d rather have that micromanagement ability that Dungeon Keeper allowed for.

I wanted to go back over some comments that I had made about the Transformers movie character, Jazz. The leaked image of Jazz was a very early draft of his movie form, and actually doesn’t look much at all like what was shown in the movie. It was the first of the movie designs to get leaked to the public, and in retrospect, it’s probably the only good one of the whole movie, with the exception of Optimus Prime.

Although I’m not terribly pleased with the robot designs for the movie, they look entirely better when they’re moving. For example, you only see Jazz transform once in the movie, but he does it with style — he actually spins around and breakdances a little. It’s very 80’s. And that makes it good, since vintage Jazz is one of my favorite Transformers characters. I might even buy the G1 homage repaint when it comes out.

Every year, Chrissy and I make it a point to go to the Taste of Chicago for a chocolate-covered strawberry. It’s a tradition that has held up since we were first dating, eight years ago. It now includes a slice of Eli’s cheesecake on a stick and cheesy garlic bread, so it’s an evolving tradition. This year, however, was the first year that Aiden has come along with us. We also brought along Chrissy’s sisters Cassie and Katie.

It was a pretty nice day today, and to compliment the nice day, there were many new vendors this year. We actually tried something other than the things that we get every year this time. For example, we tried the mozzarella-stuffed breadstick from Home Run Pizza, the BBQ meatball sandwhich from Sweet Baby Rays and the mango cummin-dusted fries with tamarind chutney from Vermillion (I found out that I didn’t like chutney today).

Chrissy and I ran through over 30 tickets, so we were pretty full by the time we left. Aiden had a few tiny bites of pretty much everything that we sampled, with the exception of the cajun sausage meatballs, which were very tasty, but too spicy for Aiden’s young palate. Water was five tickets each, so we were glad that we brought along a small cooler of pop and water. You wouldn’t pay $3.50 for a pop at a vending machine, so why would you pay five tickets for a pop at the Taste? It’s better to bring your own.

On the way home, we passed Buckingham Fountain and saw all the people staking their claim for a fireworks show spot. The last time that we stayed for fireworks, we were in a crowd of three million people (way too crowded), and the city had to close off the entire loop to allow room for everyone to leave safely. It was crazy and amazing at the same time, but not something that Chrissy would want to repeat — at least not with a toddler in tow.

After our trip to Providence and Plymouth, could we find it in our hearts to do some more driving? Sure, why not. Chrissy and I loaded up the boy into the CR-V for a road trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to see Julia and her family. It was the first time that I’d every been out there to see them, as they usually come to this side of Indiana to see me. Chrissy decided to take I-80 west, which skirts the Michigan border, instead of Route 30, which takes you directly to Fort Wayne, thinking that tollway driving is faster than highway driving. It isn’t.

Julia was very happy to see us — she is very fond of Aiden, and he really likes her too. We had some lunch and then went to the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo. Julia’s sister April had some friends meet her there, so we didn’t see much of her. That left me, Chrissy, Aiden, Julia and Mary Lou to tour the zoo on our own. It’s a small zoo, but it caters to small children. Julia has been to the zoo many times, since the summer camp that she attends is right next door.

Julia is very talkative, and she told us all about the summer camp and the things that she’s been up to lately. We stopped for some Dairy Queen in the zoo and talked some more there. Then we hung out by the wading pool (complete with squirting frog statues) until the zoo closed. Aiden loves the water, and Julia was playing with him for a while. Those of us with shoes and socks hung back and watched. We got lots of pictures of Julia and Aiden playing in the water.

After the zoo, we went back to Julia’s house for some dinner. Mark was home by then, so he made up some hamburgers on the grill. It was very nice, and we got a good idea of what Julia’s home life is like. I think that I would have liked to have grown up in such a way. Mark and Mary Lou are fantastic parents. I hope that Chrissy and I can be as good to Aiden, and we’re assured that we’ll do just fine.

I drove on the way home and took us down Route 30, not wanting a repeat of our three-hour drive there. I only got us almost pulled over once (luckily, the county cop passed me and got the guy in front of me — better you than me, buddy!). It seems that the cops near Plymouth are especially watchful of speeders, and yet I always wonder why I get pulled over near there…

Chrissy and I flew back from Rhode Island today. For some reason, we booked a return flight at 10:30 AM, so we had to wake up extra early so that would could check out, return the rental car, make it through security and find some breakfast before boarding. We made it in plenty of time, but this meant leaving before the Hasbro Future Plans presentation.

I originally thought that they would cover their future plans during the Hasbro Tour, but it was decided at the last second to have a separate presentation on Sunday. Last year’s presentation was lame because they absolutely refused to tell us anything about the movie figures coming out. This year, however, I apparently missed out big time.

I figured that I would be able to catch up on whatever was said in the presentation once I got home. Not true! Hasbro banned all recording or photos during the presentation. And then they proceeded to cover everything that I wanted to know about the new post-movie series. I was very sad. I read sketchy reports about the presentation once I got home, but it’s just not the same… I’ll just have to wait until the news leaks out, little by little, over time.

On the bright side, we get to come home to our boy. Aiden was very happy to see us, but didn’t seem like he understood that we had been gone for the last four days. It was great to play with Aiden again, and we really missed him while we were gone. I’m thinking that he may be old enough next year to go with us, if I still want to do the Botcon thing by next August.