Technology Review - Canon Vixia HF S100

Many companies turn out SD-based camcorders in compact designs, simply because the flash-based technologies allow for much smaller models than those based on tape, hard disks, and mini DVDs. While Canon continues to offer compact AVCHD models, the Vixia HF20 and the HF200, the company's branching out with slightly more "pro" prosumer offerings in the Vixia HF S100 and the Vixia HF S10.

These two models, which record 1,920x1,080 60i video, feature a larger, faster f1.8 10x HD lens and a relatively large, high-resolution 1/2.6-inch 8-megapixel CMOS sensor, along with higher-end capabilities, such as SMPTE color bars, the ability to manually boost gain up to 18dB, fixed 70 and 100 IRE zebra stripes, and a user-assignable button/control dial combo. They differ only by internal memory: the HF S100 has none, while the HF S10 has 32GB.

Though it weighs a bit over a pound, the camcorder feels kind of light for its 2.8-inch-by-2.7-inch-by-5.4-inch dimensions. Still, it's no featherweight, and while I fit it into a loose jacket pocket it's not very compact. With only a few exceptions, the camcorder has a nice, functional design, with intelligently laid out controls and a streamlined user interface. The larger size makes it a bit more comfortable to hold and operate as well.

Looking at the camcorder head-on, one of the first things you notice is the odd built-in lens cover that uses a closing-eye type rather than aperture-blade type of design we usually see. It wouldn't be notable except that when closed, the two plastic pieces tend to rattle against each other; since the camcorder is off it's not a problem, just a minor irritation. Instead of putting the video light in the typical location on the side of the lens, Canon put it on the pop-up flash. The stereo mics sit on either side of the lens barrel. While they may be more susceptible to wind noise in that location (though I didn't have any problems), it allows for larger mics with better separation than the typical positioning above or below the lens. If that's not adequate, you can attach a mic via the mini accessory shoe on top of the camcorder. There's a 3.5mm mic input on the grip side of the unit, and the other connectors--USB, component, and miniHDMI--sit in a covered compartment underneath the strap. The strap does get in the way a little when you're hooking stuff up.

To one side of the lens Canon placed a new Custom dial, which looks, feels, and operates similarly to the control dial on Sony's prosumer models. You press the button to enable it, then use the dial to adjust whatever setting you've programmed it for--choices are exposure, focus, assist functions (70/100 IRE Zebra and peaking), mic level, and automatic gain control limit (0 to 18dB). I like it in the Sonys and here as well; it's a comfortable interface for adjusting options like exposure and focus, though I'm not fond of it for cycling through the Zebra and peaking options.

As usual, the zoom switch and photo button lie on top of the camcorder beneath your forefinger, with the mode dial right behind where an eye-level viewfinder should be; one of the biggest drawbacks of this model, geared toward enthusiasts, is the lack of an EVF. The power connector and 3.5mm headphone jack flank the mode button. One of the two record buttons lies under your thumb on the back. To the left of the zoom switch is the small, recessed power button which is a little to difficult to manipulate.

Most of the shooting controls live on the LCD bezel. The function button pulls up both the frequently used settings as well as the full menu system another level down. In addition to the usual--white balance, image effects, digital effects, video quality and still photo size, program and a handful of scene modes--the HF S10/100 offer real shutter- and aperture-priority shooting modes with a shutter speed range of 1/8 to 1/2000 second and aperture options ranging from f1.8 to f8, giving you more control over depth of field than you generally see in a prosumer model. It also offers Canon's Cine mode for adjusting color and gamma to go with its 24F progressive modes, though it and 30F get recorded as 60i. In still mode you can select metering and drive modes as well. Other high-end features accessible via the menus include three fixed or variable zoom speed, x.v.Color mode, color bars, and a test tone.

The menu system itself has been updated for a smoother feel and the ability to choose font size. Since the 2.7-inch display is the typical low-resolution model, the small fonts look pixelated and would be hard for some to read. It does stand up pretty well in direct sunlight, however.

Navigating down on the joystick while shooting triggers a fly-up menu to pop up the video light (which works in still photo mode), digital effects, 3-second prerecord, backlight and exposure compensation, manual focus, mic level, face detection, and a digital teleconverter. The options are slightly different in still mode: you gain flash and lose the mic and teleconverter. It's especially nice that you still have quick access to functions that you don't assign to the custom dial.

The HF S10/S100 also incorporate this year's features, which include Video Snapshots, 4-second clips used to create a "highlights reel" effect (the camcorders ship with a music CD). I like the idea, but the implementation can be annoying. You enter Video Snapshot mode by pressing a hard-to-feel button on the left side of the camcorder in the LCD recess. A blue outline appears on the display. When you press record, a highlight travels around the blue outline counting down your 4 seconds. It stays in Video Snapshot mode until you switch to playback or press the button again. While I like the way the display feedback works, I think I might have preferred a separate record button, or a choice on the mode dial rather than the have the isolated button. (For a complete accounting of the HF S10/100's features, you can download the PDF manual.)

Performance and quality are top notch at both its maximum 24Mbps bit rate and 17Mbps. (Recording capacities are about 5.5 minutes per gigabyte and 7.8 min/GB, respectively. Canon recommends a Class 4 or better SDHC card.) The camcorder focuses quickly and accurately, even in low light. While battery life is pretty average for its class, it recharges fairly quickly; Canon claims it takes 10 minutes per half hour of battery life. The optical stabilizer, as usual, works well out to the end of the zoom range. The video looks great: sharp, with saturated colors, and excellent exposures with relatively few blown-out highlights. The DigicDV 3 processing does a solid job maximizing the dynamic range. Living-room light-level recordings look quite good as well. There's a bit of noise and softness, but that's to be expected. The audio records crisp and clear, too. The camcorder's not perfect, however. Outdoor shots do show a bit of purple fringing on high-contrast edges, and there's some color shift in reds and blues. Still photos have a slightly overprocessed look as many camcorder stills do, and the flash does odd things to the saturation, but overall they're not bad.

If you're a video hobbyist or a pro looking for something cheap and portable to complement your workhorse equipment, the identical twins Canon Vixia HF S10 and HF S100 deliver a much better shooting experience than the current crop of $600 HD camcorders--as long as you can live without the EVF. The HF S100 is probably the better deal, since the price of a 32GB card should be less than the price differential between the two models.

Gaming Review - Fable II

While most of us probably think of fables as charming if occasionally eerie bedtime morality tales packing cliched life lessons like rubber bullets, the term is also occasionally used in a more disparaging sense to connote something false, or put a bit more generously, something that's not exactly true. "What is history," asked Napoleon, "but a fable agreed upon?" What is reality, to extend the metaphor, but group subscriber fiction? What is a video game about a yokel who eventually pulls himself up by several dozen designer-dyed pairs of bootstraps to save the world, but an echo of an atavistic power fantasy?

Don't worry. You're not expected to answer much less ask those sorts of questions as you're traipsing about Fable II's glamorous bosky timberlands and gassy bogs bedding lovers, raising kids, chasing dogs, and dispatching trolls with roots sprouting from their heads like dreadlocks. It's never on the lips of the tatty-trousered or fancy-bonneted citizens that frequent Albion's muddy lanes and cobblestone boulevards, sighing and dreaming out loud and occasionally pausing to hail or curse your titled good name ("Lionheart"? "Dog Lover"?). There's never a wrestling match with a fanged grad school quandary or a gauntlet of snarling obversions, syllogisms, and transpositions. You're not here to solve for X or to prove that pink elephants don't exist, or that polka-dotted ones do.

And yet there is a deep and abiding philosophical principle coiled through Fable II's uncanny physiology like an invisible spine. It's a bit easier to spot when you compare Peter Molyneux's gradual evolution from a sort of mad genius converting gorgeous Rube Goldberg contraptions into half-playable games asking "What do you think of playing this?" to his work on Fable II, clear evidence of a mature designer who's finally figured out how to extricate pathos from all that whiz-bang and make his lovely Rube Goldberg widgets service the nervous system of a more fundamental and transformative question: "How do you feel when playing this?"

Easily asked, perilously answered, and yet Molyneux's Fable II antes up, supposing what might happen when not just one but a startling array of play styles are accommodated, where the classic notion of "winning" is turned on its head, and where "failure" is just another chance to offer more entertainment.

And that would be Fable II's most intrepid gamble: It's essentially impossible to lose. I don't mean impossible in terms of "quit, load save game, repeat with clean slate." You'll incidentally have to turn off your Xbox if you want to restart the game from a save state, but by the time you realize this, it's already irrelevant. The whole idea that you're a walking bag of numbers on the verge of scooping up some more numbers on the road to "success by mathematical aggregate" is more or less out the window, replaced by a system that's built instead to sense when you're bumping up against a personal vertical and either help you tilt that angle down a bit, or convince you to give something else a go instead. Not completing a task doesn't equal not completing a task, it just means trying something else for a bit, sort of like pinballing between casino games. And that's another way of thinking about Fable II: an elaborate game of chance, one in which you're constantly hedging this activity against that one for fame or fortune.

Even when you die -- the archetypal "fail state" in any game -- you actually don't. Instead, you shudder to the ground and reality buckles for a few tense seconds, then you rise to your feet and wade right back into the fray. No fuss, no muss. No reloads from save points or long treks back from distant penalty points. Just a little face and body scarring and the potential loss of experience orbs dropped by slain creatures (you have to vacuum these up or you'll forfeit them). It's part of a design philosophy that says "I've been you, I know what you hate about these games, and I hate the schoolboy design stuff as much as you do."

Schoolboy indeed. Sure, you're still shackled to a certain elemental formula here, still observing the rudimentary "zero-to-hero" monomyth whose central tenet commands Thou Shalt Start Out Wimpy on the battle-snarled road to celebrity fame, rocklike pectorals, and a brimming logbook's worth of statistical trophies tallying everything from how many times you've paid for sex to the number of people you've sacrificed at the local cult temple.

And yet you're not really following anything, because regardless of the brief-sounding 12 or so hour Aristotelian narrative that slices through Fable II's shifting geology like a granite arrow, following that arrow never feels inexorable -- a "wander off the beaten path" trick other games have certainly attempted. But where those others compose broadly on a canvas thin as the rubber skin of a balloon, Fable II knits limited geographical regions together using a network of casual mini-games that beckon like an epic interregional midway you can cruise at your leisure. We're talking romance, sex (with condoms or without), marriage, child-rearing, family upkeep, bounty hunting, cult worshipping, thieving, buying and selling real estate, merchandizing, woodcutting, blacksmithing, bartending, modeling, chicken-kicking, rabbit-shooting, treasure-hunting, and some 14 distinctive types of criminal activity, from drunk and disorderly conduct to violating parole.

Now imagine those activities feeding into each other, a matrix of ricocheting, optional to-dos that shape and describe the sum total of your life-as-entertainment in this game. Don't think side quests, think "dozens and dozens of main quests" that don't branch so much as crisscross -- nothing ever feels subsidiary to an overarching imperative, though the drama of the main story is always there, cleverly woven into the fabric of each locale and eerily resonant in dialogue that feels emergent even though you know it's not.

Save for the indelible electric blue scars that accrue on your face and body from battle (in triplicate if you fight and flounder frequently) nothing in Fable II is immutable. Drive the locals mad by sleeping premaritally with everyone in sight and it's the work of a few minutes tenderizing with gifts and wielding desirable expressions like dancing and belching or flexing and farting to make them fall in love with your silly self all over again. Consequences still matter, but think long term, because their impact isn't always immediately apparent. The sell point here is that if you work hard enough, you can push the world or be pulled by it, no unstoppable narrative forces, no immovable design objects.

Part of that work involves combat, of course, which follows a masterfully executed third principle: acclimation. You'd expect a traditionalist to balk at the notion of one-button combat (one for melee, one for ranged, and one for magic) and yet the game keeps you so busy juggling so many different tasks that by the time you're thinking "Where's my block-dodge-flank buttons?" you're unlocking the first of several one-button variations. One isn't just the loneliest number, it's also the most deceptive. Think how many rhythms a drummer can coax out of a single drumhead, and you've got the basic sense of how Fable II's one-button combat evolves using time and rhythm the way other games use finger-gnarling button combos.

Add the variable timed interplay between melee, ranged, and magical abilities, namely how long it takes to execute each, the tactically unique and mostly challenging ways in which each of your opponent's behaves, and the fact that scooping up experience orbs left by slain creatures makes you vulnerable, and you have a battle system that's almost miraculously nuanced and instantly accessible to a five-year-old.

I'd be remiss not to mention how gorgeous Fable II looks and sounds, from the moment the game opens with crackling rubbish bins flanked by gleaming snow and calliopes dolorously huffing and grinding beside polychromatic wagons, on through the dazzling stand-still-to-watch sunrises and sunsets. It's in the subtle things, too, like the way your heightened awareness of the world during revelatory moments invokes a deadening of hues, or the way others react dramatically to events and affect your experience empathically. It's startling how much more effective something as simple as a companion heaving his guts out at a horrifying situation can be than simply smearing the screen with gore. And it's one thing to see a dilapidated bridge in a game, but entirely another when someone else is articulating somewhat timorously that it looks rickety. Occasionally the maxim "show don't tell" calls for reversal, something Fable II's design team understands intuitively.

I've made it to this point and only mentioned the dog once. That's intentional. It's because I'm with Molyneux when he says: "The dog...it's just a dog." He's underplaying his hand, of course, since he knows anything more would lead to hype and disappointment. Make what you will of the dog's companionship. I think he's a terrific way to add a nonverbal companion as well as a dramatic linchpin for...well, you'll have to see for yourself. In the end, he's mostly there to pull you off the game's auto-mapping "bread crumb trail" that ably points the way to whatever you've targeted. For me, he was actually therapeutic, a friendly corrective for my somewhat neurotic tendency to scour every square inch of the map before moving on. With the dog, for the first time ever, I completely relaxed. If he barked, I listened, and that was enough.

Does it matter that the pause-menu inventory screens feel sluggish and can't be bothered to sort items alpha-numerically? (I'm looking at you, Lucien's diary notes.) That each area map crams its lengthy indexes of shops and special locations into just one or two scrollable lines? That the general world map never displays where you are in relation to anything? Nothing's perfect, but it's somewhat baffling that the tactical AI does such an able job challenging you at close quarters, but that you can needle enemies at a distance with bolts and bullets and only the ones getting shot ever seem to react. To be honest, I'm bending over backwards to come up with legitimate criticisms here, but just to be thorough, the only other one that comes to mind involves the too-easy way spouses swallow affairs if they catch you at it, leading to a second or two of discomfort but nothing more serious than a few tetchy verbal zingers.

If Fable II has an overarching theme, you could summarize it as "devotional," as in devoted to ensuring you not only have ready access to everything you need, but also that you understand why you need it. This is a game that's literally tripping over itself to make sure you're having a good time, always with a droll sense of humor, carefully counterbalanced by a strange and wondrous game world that's deeply dark and beautiful

Gaming Reiew - Gears of War 2

When Epic's design team was prodded about Gears of War 2's story in interviews earlier this year, it boasted that the sequel to its mega-selling third-person tactical shooter would have more heart. They weren't kidding. Gears 2 has all kinds of heart, only not for the reasons you're probably thinking. Let's just say you wouldn't mistake this skillfully paced and obsessively detailed game's cranked up cardiac fetish for the double-humped icon etched on greeting cards or at the end of junior high love letters. In Gears 2, it's the bloody pumping organ itself, all veins and striated muscle, a mentally grinding, athletically pounding assault on your senses without a delicate Hallmark moment in sight. Red meat for the twitching masses. Halo for the shoot-and-swagger crowd.

I'm talking mostly about the story, of course, effectively MIA from Gears of War, and long rumored to be "deeper" this time around. In July, Carlos Ferro, the actor who voices Dominic Santiago (one of your squad mates in the game) went so far as to claim Gears 2 would be "more emotionally affecting" than Irrational's BioShock, a game often celebrated for its unusual thematic maturity. Ferro's comments left diehard fans breathless but the rest of us frankly bewildered. The original Gears was dark and despairing, sure, but if it ever had a sensitive side, someone took a chainsaw to it long ago. Besides, "Story, schmory," said fans, and "We wanna shoot some cool stuff."

"Yes You Can!"

Don't worry, there's if anything probably twice as much cool stuff to power-drill here. And while there is an uptick in Gears 2's steel-ribbed, gun-rocked melodrama, it's tale of humanity's apocalyptic war with a subterranean species known as the Locust Horde is still mostly pulp fiction about guys with arms like tree trunks and shoulders up to their eyeballs who affectionately bump rifles in lieu of chests. Guys who share quips like locker room jocks fantasizing about ways to pound the other sides' tackles and tight ends and tailbacks into meat pudding. Guys who don't mind offending the ladies (who aren't really in the game, but might be watching their husbands and boyfriends playing it) with occasionally crude, boorish references.

At one point in Gears 2, the driver of a vehicle that looks like the Sandcrawler in Star Wars, a guy who sports a cowboy hat and speaks with an exaggerated twang, refers to the dual lights on his vehicle as a pair of "rhymes-with-ditties." Guys in the room may chuckle, girls in earshot will probably cringe. And when the moment that Ferro was actually referring to finally arrives, it really is moving, but then it's in spite of the narrative remainder's dramatic ticks, which have all the emotional resonance of gongs struck with sledgehammers.

"Who cares," you're saying, "just tell me whether Gears 2 is a better game!"

It is, for the most part. It's still the same game, mind you, but with less of the first one's problems. You still play as a guy who rasps like a three-pack-a-day smoker, jogging with small squads of three or four through cover-cluttered environments scrambling for places to conceal your considerable bulk. You still hunker in the ruin of human cities and hump wrecked cars or bullet-chiseled concrete walls by tapping a button, peering around corners to unload ammo clips or snipe off heads poked unwisely over barriers. You still have to stare across areas crosscut by tracer fire and figure out the best way to liquefy a clutch of dug-in enemies by flushing them out with pincer fire.

In the ominous interludes between battles, you'll scout the debris for new weapons or hunks of ammo and the rare bit of background material in the form of dog tags, inscribed messages, and scraps of paper. Then it's back to work, squatting behind whatever you can scrabble over to, popping up, scanning for shots, sliding along your plane of protection to change your angle on the battle, flanking where possible, ensuring you're not outflanked in the process. It's a tense and tactically delicate experience, more "crawl and brawl" than "run and gun."

The first Gears frequently dispatched you down not-so-invisible highways with arbitrarily concocted encounters that triggered only after you tripped phantom wires. It's broadest spaces looked wide open but often felt functionally claustrophobic. Assaults on enemy positions often had a meat-and-potatoes "straight" route next to a heinously flagrant "sidewise" alternative. While its multiplayer levels were designed to let you get behind your enemies with a little cautious maneuvering, in solo play, the enemy never really tried to circle round you.

The game's five act campaign consequently felt more like clawing your way along a heavily defended tunnel. The upside was that it still took plenty of skill to move forward, enough that you often didn't notice the tunnel's walls. The downside was that things never felt as laterally tactical as they should have, something a lot of critics missed, or simply misunderstood.

Sharper Enemies, Smarter Pacing

Gears 2 still portions itself into acts and those acts into chapters and the chapters themselves into micro-tactical objectives, but the places you'll go feel more explorative and far less restrictive this time. From the flame-licked wreckage of human cities to the stunning fungoid beauty of the subterranean Locust hollow here, most areas are simply bigger, with more cover to cling to (and in a few intriguing cases, nubs of cover you can conjure up yourself). Structures or underground tunnels now tend to have multiple ingress and egress points, and choosing alternative routes extends well beyond the three or four scripted moments that Gears 2 pauses like its predecessor and asks you to choose a road, high or low.

The enemy better understands how to take advantage of those routes, too, something that's especially obvious in the game's new multiplayer "Horde" mode, where the computer fiendishly throws up to 50 waves of increasingly powerful enemies at you. Every 10 waves you make it past, those enemies dish out and soak up more damage, and without a solid group, they'll lay you out in less time than it takes to pull off a perfect reload.

Incidentally, it's worth dying on purpose in "Horde," because you can pull back and watch what's happening with handy text tags identifying the bad guys by name (as in their functions, like "grind," "boom," and "burn" -- guess what they do). Observing Gears 2's new-and-improved enemy quickly and intelligently advancing to flank or SWAT-style assault your pals is both illuminating and chilling. Spend some time here. You'll learn a lot.

Epic seems to have a better handle on the game's pacing this time, too, intercutting battles with combat-free sections that give you a chance to simply pan and scan the eye-catching architecture or take a moment to reflect on the drama. Other times, after pounding through occasionally grueling sections that'll see you dying and reloading lots -- like one particularly inspired level where razor-sharp hail pours from the sky as you volley with Locust troops and try to navigate forward without leaving overhead cover -- the game will suddenly drop you into a vehicle with devastating weaponry and give you some space to blink and stretch and pour that pressure-cooked stress into swarms of easily eviscerated enemies. It's simple and perhaps a trifle juvenile, but cathartic and purposeful and evidence of solid game design at work.

Super Gears Bros.

Not that the game's any easier for those moments. If anything, it's more challenging for the reasons listed above, but on occasion for a few bad ones as well. There's a maddeningly clumsy flying sequence toward the end, for instance, where you have to man a pair of mounted guns, switching between fore and aft. That in itself isn't a problem, but the game -- which until this point has seen you on flat surfaces rarely shooting more than 45-degrees off dead center -- hasn't prepared you for 360-degree aiming, not to mention simultaneously dodging lethal incoming objects that can take you out in a blink. It's a gaping design flaw, exacerbated by the fact that you're playing a detestable memorization game: Fly to a spot, die, realize what you need to do not to, inch forward to the next death, bookmark the workaround, repeat until you're through. Does it look cool? Heck yes, but you're too busy fighting the controls and mucking them up and, you know, dying and reloading to frankly care.

Other issues are notable but not game-breaking. Enemies sometimes fail to acknowledge your presence standing a body length or two over, or step out stupidly from cover into a blizzard of gunfire. You could argue that makes things more realistic, more reflective of the kinds of mistakes humans make in multiplayer, but I doubt it's intentional. There's also a sequence toward the game's middle that celebrates design lead Cliff Bleszinski's love for Shigeru Miyamoto. It's relatively inoffensive, probably because the running and dodging parts are easy to breeze through and over quickly enough. Most players will remember it long after they've set the game aside, but for entirely different reasons.

Submit, Wingman

I've already mentioned "Horde" mode in multiplayer games, but of all the kill-or-be-killed competitive variants here, the brightest are probably "Submission" and "Wingman." "Submission" looks like capture the flag, except the flag has arms, legs, and a gun. He's also referred to as a "meat flag," and the idea's to capture him as an enemy shield, hostage style (a feature in the campaign as well, but one I found functionally useless, for the record) then drag him into a ring. Hold inside the ring long enough and your team wins.

"Wingman" pits you and an identical-looking teammate against four additional two-player teams in kill contests with high stakes rules: to kill an opponent, you have to execute a close range maneuver or score a one-shot kill. It's an incredibly tense game of hobble-then-pounce that gets players out of a map's corners and hide spaces and taking chances in closer quarters.

Join or leave anytime cooperative play is back, online or off, and continues to work so well it makes you want to wag your finger at other games that "break" their campaigns or cripple their stories when folding partner players in. Yep, you can still convert a single player game into a coop one or vice versa, which makes you wonder why Epic even bothered splitting the two apart, since it would have been just as easy to add a "solo" option to coop mode's "private" or "public" Xbox Live invite tags.

Up Your Arsenal

Favorite new weapons? Nothing stands out. I'm a rifle and sniper guy most of the time, but occasionally tapped the new flamethrower to fend off enemies in a few sections where they crowd-rush you (the ability to flame out farther each time you hit a perfect active reload is especially satisfying). The ink grenades which kick up a poison cloud are helpful if you want to flush someone out, since the area effect is broader than the blast radius on frags. A few spots let you wield a mortar cannon, which fires imprecisely, precisely as it should, and rewards firing off a few test shots by giving you a better sense for how your button timing relates to casting distance.

The most helpful new weapon, especially towards the end, is probably the boomshield, which you hold in your left hand while wielding a pistol in the other. Employing the shield acts like cover, but lets you advance slowly forward, allowing bold angles on entrenched enemies and giving you forward momentum since you can march and shoot simultaneously. It's also possible to plant the shield and hunker behind it, though it's a tactic I've yet to find useful.

"Die, Oo-mahn!"

Gears of War 2 isn't for the fainthearted or easily frustrated. It's also still more a divider than a uniter. It's not dramatically interesting enough to medicate anyone deathly allergic to shooters, and given its hardcore demographic, not really friendly enough online to appeal to the only casually competitive. But for a series that's already sold millions of copies, those were always the outliers anyway. If you're a Gears fan, Gears 2 is all steps forward, a game that played at the highest difficulty levels constantly teases "Bet you can't." To which the only proper response is "Just watch me."

Gaming Review - A Redneck Rampage

Twenty bucks doesn't buy much these days. Two tickets to a new movie. Maybe a dinner at TGI Friday's. But what about cheap games? Sure, you can go over to Web sites such as Cheapassgamer.com to find great deals on some stuff that came out earlier this year, but what about all the games that regularly go for $20?

That's how I wound up becoming a videogame bull. Huh? Out of the Chute, branded by Professional Bull Riders, is currently playing on my Wii. Why? Well, when I saw the $20 title on a store shelf, curiosity got the better of me. I mean, how do you make a game like this even remotely fun? Just flip the box over. It reads: "Climb on the back of....blah, blah, blah...yippe ki-yay"--wait a sec--"...Or become 2000 pounds of fury and try to buck off the best riders in the world..." I get to play as a surly side of beef? SOLD!

Madden. Tony Hawk. Shaun White. Whatever. You ever hear of Chicken on a Chain? (Hint: Not a sadistic KFC snack.) Me neither. Heck, my only exposure to this stuff was the Jeff Foxworthy litmus test to see if I am a redneck--and I am not. So after a quick Google search during a holiday season full of truly awesome games, I can report with confidence that nobody--and I mean no-body--is reviewing Out of the Chute. Until now.

No Bull

PBR Out of the Chute (Wii): 40%

Eight seconds. That's how long it took me to realize that this game is a squandered opportunity. Out of the Chute had drinking/party game potential written all over it. Imagine playing as the bull, galloping around the living room with flailing arms, trying to throw invisible knuckleheads off your back while buddies try keeping rhythm with a Wiimote to hang on. Kodak moments aplenty.

Instead, you're limply tilting a remote to turn and occasionally mashing a button to pull power moves. Yawn--is this ride over yet? I'm sure for fans, being able to play as any of more than 24 different real live bulls and buckaroos in a career mode sounds sweet. But blazing through the ten-city tour in 8-second intervals (and then sitting through load screens that last twice as long) isn't my definition of "fun."

I'm not hating on this game because I don't have a finer appreciation of the sport. My disappointment stems from the fact that this game screams to be taken advantage of with the Wii's uniquely cool controllers. Instead, you get a sad-sack experience that looks and plays exactly like what it is: BS shovelware.

The Buck Stops Here

I'm not gonna look you in the eye (or stare really hard into the screen) and say that I thought this game would be any good. But it's cheap and it's on the Wii. Matt Peckham recently pondered how the Wii is becoming a dumping ground for deep discount games. But for every Animal Crossing: City Folk that eases across my screen, I'm seeing a lot of games that cater to very specific crowds: little kids, casual puzzle gamers, and...well...rednecks. Many journalists and most gamers sneer at the thought of playing these deer-huntin' games. But companies keep making 'em, which means that somebody must be bagging some bucks (antlered or not), right? I think the problem is that nobody is making a really good blue-collar game. Let's try looking at a couple more titles on store shelves.

Paintballers are given some degree of love with the release of Championship Paintball 2009. Unless they closely follow the exploits of Team Dynasty and outfits of that ilk, most first-person shooter fans are likely to get annoyed by the controls for this game--or to get bored. That said, the Wii version is the best of a tedious bunch.

Coming in the next couple of weeks are two games that I managed to pick up on my redneck radar. I'm sad to report that Deer Drive, which launches next week, is not about road-killing your way to a freezerful of venison. Nor does it put a 12-point buck behind the wheel of an armored off-road vehicle, though that would certainly make the hunt more of a two-way street, so to speak. (It's actually a kind of multiplayer, Duck Hunt-inspired, arcade skeet shoot with your Wiimote). And I seriously doubt that any of the events contested in Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree--you read that right--will appear in the 2012 Olympic games. Y'know, classy stuff like lawnmower racing and the toilet seat throw.

There is some light at the end of the scope for the PC deer-bagging crowd. The Hunter employs a fairly impressive looking 3D engine. In fact, when I first saw a couple of screen shots (like the beauty included here), I did a double take. Was this a full-blown first-person shooter? Avalanche Studios, the guys behind the outdoor action game Just Cause, seems to have abandoned hardcore gamers for a more casual crowd that will stick around and admire the scenery. The game is still in a beta state, but trust me on this: Go to the site and sign up to see what happening here--a social-networking/hunting MMO. Not only is the site promising to roll out new scenarios over time, but the game will also have links to social networks like FaceBook. So make sure your avatar is wearing orange or something.

The Rant

Someone needs to stand up for Joe the Gamer (when he's not a plumber). People may have lowered expectations for sub-$20 titles, but c'mon! I can't imagine that even varmint hunters (yes, Virginia, there was a Varmint Hunter game) would enjoy playing some of the garbage that passes as software.

If the indie gaming community can pull together hoards of awesome free games on the Web--and regularly sell cheap, fun stuff for less than $10 a pop on consoles (for some worthwhile examples, check out Nintendo's WiiWare Channel, Sony's PSN Store, and Xbox's Community Games)--why can't people who like lawnmower racing get high-quality titles as well? Do you think they just don't know any better?

The way I see it, someone needs to make the Madden of bull-riding games or the Tony Hawk of toilet seat tossing--or whatever. I can wait.

NOTE: Without getting too corny or maudlin, this column's dedicated to my pop--whose oddball sense of humor always reminded me that even in the tough times, you gotta laugh. Because the other options are too damn depressing. Especially now, you need to take a minute and have yourself a happy holiday.

Gaming Review - Aquaria

Side-scrolling action adventure games are a dying breed. Big publishing houses stick to 3-D graphics and fashionable genres, but side-scrolling action games have a rich history. Super Mario Bros. broke through to American audiences when I was a kid, and its core game components--avoiding obstacles, powerups, and clever level design--all still hold true today. Combining the frenetic action of Mega Man with the oceanic artistry of Echo the Dolphin, Aquaria is an undersea adventure game where you must guide a water nymph named Naija to find her family and unravel the mystery of the underwater world of Aquaria. Independent game house developer Bit Blot has created an enchanting and challenging game that harkens back to the golden age of side-scrolling action adventures. (The Mac version of Aquaria is being distributed by Ambrosia Software.)

Aquaria's story begins rather tentatively. At first, you're treated to a British-voice actress's pretentious monologue about fate, and then you meander through some pretty caves; you get to admire both the visual style of the game and the pleasing soundtrack. But just as Aquaria begins to resemble an interactive art installation, a mysterious figure appears and teleports you into a seeming dream world where you first control the dark "energy form" of Naija. This sequence is a clever way to foreshadow the later, more sinister tone of the game and give the player hope that the character will not always be such a pacified Little Mermaid knockoff.

Instead, Naija's powers become darker and more potent throughout the game. Initially, she can only swim, summon a speed burst, and sing. The "sing" interface is a clever design conceit that allows Naija to interact with certain environmental factors and cast magic. Eventually, Naiji will learn to transform into different forms that vary from a close-combat style beast form to an evil-looking energy form that grants Naija the ability to blast enemies with bolts of magic. Not only can you obliterate the alien-looking armored foes you encounter, but helpless schools of fish as well. You'll also gain access to different costumes, pets that will aid you in battle, and other allies.

The level design favors labyrinths and discovery over linear stages. Each successive level carries new dangers and different challenges, and for a game based purely underwater, the environments are remarkably varied. You'll get to explore abandoned cities, kelp forests, and a corrupted cathedral that resembles a Castlevania stage crossed with the stomach of a whale. Pretty spooky.

There are many moments in the game where you truly appreciate how well it is crafted. The soundtrack alone is one of the catchiest I've heard in a while. Some of the later areas are shrouded in darkness and Naija must use her body like a flashlight to see the way--a clever way to spice up gameplay. The bosses resemble old school monsters and boss battles require you to use a variety of the skills you've learned. The sea creatures are diversified and numerous throughout the stages, and there are some cute details too: when you journey towards the surface, you can hop out of the water and knock monkeys out of their trees... and then watch them drown.

As clever as Aquaria is, the game was made on a relatively small budget. The voice acting worked for me, but the writing follows the predictable "arrogance sunk Atlantis" pattern. And while the retro graphics and style were great tributes to a bygone era in gaming, the death sequences are a bit hokey.

The map system was probably my biggest frustration with the game. Instead of having linear stages, Aquaria follows the adventure format and has lots to explore. The map has little icons depicting where you should go next, but I found them next to useless and basically used trial and error to figure out what I could explore next. The game's long play time ensures a rewarding experience, but I had some agonizing minutes retracing my steps to see if there was some new passage I could access.

Gaming Review - Rayman Raving Rabbids

When the Nintendo Wii first debuted, Ubisoft's Rayman Raving Rabbids turned into something of a sleeper hit. The game featured the popular platform action game star Rayman in a sequence of mini-games that emphasized the Wii's novel control system. Now it's available for the Mac. And I have to wonder why.

Rayman, hero of a series of games including at least one that's available on the Mac, is an animated character featuring a cartoonish head with large nose, a big forelock of hair, hands, feet and torso, but no arms or legs. He finds himself captured by the eponymous Raving Rabbids, nutty bunnies with a vicious mean streak. Screaming at him in a coliseum, the Rabbids want Rayman to participate in an increasing series of activities that test his reaction time and skills, such as a hammer toss that uses an overweight cow on a chain instead of a hammer, or a Wild West-style gunfight with plungers instead of six-shooters.

I can't say that there's any consistent narrative or thread that really makes the games or the game story coherent or consistent, but the zany insanity is part of the fun, and you take it in stride as part of the game play. The Rabbids themselves are adorable, in a bug-eyed, psychotic sort of way; they're fond of chattering at you and screaming, and their pudgy bodies and big heads make them squishably adorable, even if they're rather evil.

Playing the game on the Wii is revelatory, at least for a new Wii owner; it was a great launch title for the Wii, precisely because we were still understanding how the Wii's remote controls worked. The cow toss, for example, encouraged you to swing the Wii remote around in a circle until the cow took flight. The gunfight game had you pointing at the Rabbids and firing with your Wii remote.

Of course, there's no Wii remote for the Mac. So instead of using a device that you're pointing in the direction of the screen--or at least of the Wii sensor bar--you're simply using your mouse to point and click. It's simple gameplay, but it's not nearly as rewarding, fun, or revelatory as the Wii version. Basically, Rayman Raving Rabbids just doesn't translate very well to the Mac.

That's not to diminish the comedy gold of the Rabbids themselves, however. Ubisoft deserves credit for imbuing them with a manic absurdity that's both endearing and frustrating. They're so totally random and goofy, you're going to love them right from the get-go.

There aren't an unlimited number of mini-games. You'll play the same ones over and over again, and others are simply variations on the same themes you will have played before. So it can get a bit boring after a while.

And if you've seen Rayman Raving Rabbids played on a Wii, you'll find that the graphics are crisper and clearer on your Mac than they are on your TV-graphics quality is definitely not the Nintendo Wii's strong suit.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB. The only descriptor offered by the ESRB is "comic mischief"--an understatement where the nutty Rabbids are concerned--and there are some occasionally off-color references (such as one game where you have to keep the doors closed to various outhouses populated by suddenly shy Rabbids). Potty jokes aside, Rayman Raving Rabbids is pretty tame and safe for the whole family, unless you're excessively prudish.

TransGaming's Cider treatment of Rayman Raving Rabbids is competent, albeit unremarkable. It ran well enough on my 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. Because it's a Cider version, you need an Intel-based Mac, and Rayman Raving Rabbids demands better graphics than the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics found on older Mac minis, MacBooks and some low-end iMacs. The game can be purchased and downloaded directly from GameTree Online, TransGaming's e-commerce site, so you don't have to go searching at stores for the game.

I did experience a couple of crashes that were inconsistent and not repeatable. The original PC game upon which it is based was prone to some stability issues, according to some reports I read, so I can't say that the problem was specific to the Cider translation.

Macworld's buying advice

If you're not a Wii owner and the idea of a bunch of mini-games featuring nutty cartoon bunnies sounds appealing, Rayman Raving Rabbids can be appealing. But if you've already tried it on the Wii, you're going to find that the gameplay loses a lot in translation.

[Macworld senior editor Peter Cohen spends his time at the home in the company of a raving cat rather than any raving rabbids.]

Gaming Review - Black and White 2

Ever wanted to play God? Smite non-believers, cast miracles, and all that? In the Black and White game series, that's just the first level. In this god simulator from designers Peter Molyneux and Ron Millar, your power and supernatural prowess is determined by how much worshippers fear and love you. With two guiding "consciences," you can build a beautiful city and have the people adore you and your peaceful ways; or build a large army, conquer the land and have the people tremble before your wrath.

The plot of Black and White 2 begins as a "pure prayer" beckons you to return to your tribe of Greeks. You find that your people's city is being ransacked by Aztecs, and through the course of the game you must confront the Aztecs, Norse, and Japanese in order to re-establish your people's livelihood. The developers seemingly threw together peoples throughout history without concern for chronology, geography, or common sense.

In practicality, Black and White 2 is one part city simulator, one part real time strategy (RTS) game, and oddly enough, one part pet simulator. The amalgam of the genres is not as awkward as it sounds, but does leave something to be desired. During gameplay, you command a group of worshippers who need to build up their city and civilization. You assign them jobs, aid their society's advancement with a magical anthropomorphic creature who you also need to guide, and ultimately command their armies should you choose a warlike path.

Unlike many other strategy games, the interface for Black and White 2 is stripped down. Your mouse guides a hand that can manipulate most of the world around you. By grabbing and placing civilians, you assign them a disciple status of a certain type- worshipper, forester, farmer, breeder, etc. You can grab and place new buildings, roads, and even control your creature. A series of gestures allows you to cast spells and if you feel like being a wrathful god, you can throw people or throw rocks onto people.

While it's a real thrill to throw rocks at enemy soldiers and there are times when your hand is really a useful tool, the game relies too heavily on the inexact mechanism. While trying to assign a disciple to a new job, I'd often end up dropping and killing it. The hand is positively clumsy when trying to manipulate rock throwing, and I'd often end up slapping my creature when I meant to be petting him.

Training your creature is one of the most time-consuming elements of gameplay, and requires a great deal of micromanagement. You'll be grateful that you trained your creature well when he successfully demolishes an enemy platoon. But you'll also get frustrated when you have to stop what you're doing and discipline your creature for crapping on some villagers. The game does a good job of showing how the creature matures physically and develops his various skills--he's your greatest weapon and tool to use; but even after training him for several levels, he's still going to act like a moron when you need him most.

Part of this is the game's universally abysmal artificial intelligence. Not only is your creature dumb ("I'm going to go munch on those rocks!" it says) but the citizen AI is also sickly stupid. You'll welcome a migration to your city (hooray!) but they'll then decide to stay outside your influence ring and slowly die out, thereby robbing you of their manpower. On the plus side, once you figure out the AI's ridiculously simple battle tactics, many of the missions are very easy to complete. I set up my wall with archers and because it was so close to the enemy rallying point, they constantly picked off enemy soldiers without me having to do anything. The enemy platoons, for their part, just stood there and wondered where the rain of arrows was coming from.

The game separates good from evil and encourages you to use whatever tactics work best for the given situation. You are encouraged to use whatever tactics you want, but what it comes down to is the amount of time you want to invest. If you don't mind spending days on a mission then you won't mind playing the good path, which takes many hours to build up an impressive enough city to ultimately win the land. The enemy city will also seek to become more impressive, and so you basically play a dumbed-down version of SimCity for hours and wait until victory or boredom occurs.

The evil side is pretty simple to win. You build up a massive army and send your troops with your powered-up creature to wreak havoc on the neighboring cities. Instead of playing SimCity, you'll be playing the world's wonkiest war RTS game. There are only a couple of troop types to use, a limited number of tactics to employ with them, and a control system not designed for timed troop management. Build up the experience of your archers by deploying them in your walls and upgrade your creature by giving him lots of opportunities to chew on enemy platoons. Throw the whole mix at the enemy town and win.

If playing as extremely good or evil doesn't do it for you, you can do a combination of both. Though I take issue with the game's designation of self-defense as evil, basically any use of your creature for war and any construction of armory buildings will be considered evil. In any given map, it's easiest to build up your city with some limited archer defenders and then finally build up that army to take out the enemy's major city center.

But just the RTS, pet-sim, and SimCity elements of the game do not equate a god simulator. Black and White 2 also has a handful of supernatural miracles you can perform. Your citizens worship at an altar and can grant you mana to cast spells. These include healing, fire, lightning and (on the epic scale) volcanoes. They're fun, and can become intuitive by the use of hand gestures with your mouse, but they still feel somewhat limited.

At the end of the day, Black and White 2 only partially lives up to its potential. Your limited abilities make your command seem more like a mayor with superpowers than a god, really. Sure, you can throw people around and decide what careers they'll have, but there are missed opportunities for godlike mischief. The challenges you encounter are hit or miss, which is a real shame because the game's at its best when you are tasked with renewing the faith of someone or doing something really all-powerful. That is to say, the game has some funny challenges (like proving a woman's child is not your divine offspring) but others seem ho-hum (one mission tasks you with finding scattered statues all over a map). The campaign is long but neither multiplayer nor skirmish options are supported. The ability to play as the Aztecs, Japanese, or Norse would also greatly expand replayability of the game.

The Mac edition of Black and White 2 comes with the Battle of the Gods expansion pack. The expansion does little to change the fundamental gameplay, but does grant you additional miracles, creatures to choose from, and a new campaign against the resurrected Aztecs. On the Mac, the game performed seamlessly. I didn't experience any slowdown even when my city achieved metropolis status and the graphics were strong, considering the 2005 initial release date.

Macworld's buying advice

Having mentioned to several friends I was reviewing Black and White 2, I was intrigued by how different people's opinions were. Some people saw a great "everything" simulator that has its flaws, yes, but offers supernatural powers unheard of in a strategy game. Others saw it as a dumb-down city simulator with some bells and whistles tacked on. I found myself defending the game's obvious merits-great graphics (especially for 2005), some clever design choices and a whole host of things to do. But I also can't defend the lack of multiplayer, the inability to play as the other races, the frustrating controls, and the limits on your creature's abilities. Likely a game deserving of a cult following, Black and White 2 is a mixed blessing that will divinely inspire some and churn the hellish wrath of others.