Once More Into the Breach: A Review of Call of Duty: Black Ops

I've had a good history with the Call of Duty franchise. It started, as it did for many, with 4, which blew me away with the campaign and hooked me with the multiplayer, which I ended up putting an excess of 100 hours into and Pristaging twice. Naturally I picked up World At War, and while it was solid all around, it was nowhere near as fantastic as 4. The biggest let-down was multiplayer--although I enjoyed being able to effectively wield a semi-auto rifle while everyone else struggled to shoot long-rang targets with short range SMGs, the multiplayer lacked the polish and enjoyment of 4. I had a lot of expectations for Modern Warfare 2, which was met with the campaign--again fantastic--but the multiplayer was a huge let-down, and while I held out for around 40 levels, I gave up in disgust at the sorry state of affairs.

With that in mind, I was hesitant about Black Ops--Infinity Ward had failed the last time, and Treyarch's last outing had been mediocre. I decided to not bother pre-ordering, and only pick it up if the day-of reviews were good. When they rolled in and were positive (even more so than I expected) I picked up my copy and sat down later that day to play it.

Priori Incantatum: A Review of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1

I've seen every Harry Potter movie, and I remember pretty much exactly nothing from any of them. Sure, I can summon the likenesses of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and others when necessary (although my mental representations of the characters are still stronger) but there was never a single scene that was so well presented that it overtook the one I saw when reading the novels. This is a bit surprising, since exactly that happened when I saw the Lord of the Rings movies, amongst others.

Although I don't think it will happen with the most recent attempt at screenplay magic, it's the closest yet, and I think it's a movie where I'll actually be able to recall some of the scenes. I went into the movie with low expectations, and was rewarded with the best Potter film to date, and probably the first one where I exited talked about its strengths rather than its manifold failures. Considering Book 7 is my favorite in the series (with 5 almost but not quite a tie), it was a welcome relief, and makes part 2 sound all the more appealing.

Splinters of War: A Review of Splinter Cell: Conviction

About a week ago Matt and I decided to pick up a copy of the newest Splinter Cell (we're still not quite sure which one of us paid for it, it was quite confusing) since we needed a new co-op game to run through.   I wouldn't say that SC is one of my favorite series, per se, but the two games I have played I enjoyed quite a bit, and for whatever reason it's one of the few stealth series I enjoy (in comparison to, say, Metal Gear Solid). This being the 5th game, I have now played every other SC game: 1, Chaos Theory, and Conviction. If I had heard much about the game, I didn't really remember anything about it, other than it was supposed to be better than the 4th iteration was, and that Matt told me they had "streamlined" things. What that meant I was about to find out.

Tech Trumps All: A Comparison of Eldar and Tau

Somehow, our group had ignored the Eldar for a long time; I was naturally a little familiar with the lore and idea beyond the Space-Elves, and I had glanced through their codex, but been put off with their standard troop choice wielding S4 AP5 18" weapons (coming as a Tau player, this seems inexcusably bad for a shooty army).

However, it had been quite a while since I had tried out a new army, and a discussion with Max reminded me how they were supposed to be a shooty army, and thus I decided to give the Elfdar another chance and give the codex a full and close reading. As you can suspect from me writing an entire blog post on this, I was happily surprised.