Within the last few months leading up to Dead Space’s release, a series of developer interviews began to surface, and that’s when I started to take notice. From the moment I heard the phrase “strategic dismemberment”, I knew we were in for a treat! But I refrained from getting my hopes up until the game was actually released. With the Canadian release date being a couple days being the US, that gave me a couple days to get really excited about it once the glowing reviews were published online. Right from the get-go, Dead Space grabbed me and hung on tight until the last plasma shot was fired.

Bloody Beautiful

Surprisingly, I was taken back by the visuals on a number of occasions. A lot of it takes place in tight metal corridors with flickering lights, but some areas are just huge, well lit, and extremely detailed. I was definitely impressed with the variation from chapter-to-chapter, as the tram system leads you to different sections of the distressed vessel you’re exploring. Enemies look exceptionally disgusting, and break apart spewing blood in every direction gloriously. Dead Space is without a doubt, the bloodiest, most gruesome game I’ve played to date.

“I’m Freaking Out, Man!”

There were moments in the game that genuinely upped my heart rate. And it wasn’t from things jumping out from dark corners - that shit gets old real quick. The atmosphere set by the moody ambiance, partnered perfectly with chilling moans and groans from the ship and its inhabitants truly create a frightening setting. The developers did a fantastic job of anticipating what the player is expecting, and saving it for later. Many times I walked into a room that appeared to be setup for a certain situation, but ended up being vacant. I’d run through and lower my guard, only to have the next room kick my ass.

What HUD?

Another aspect of the game that I just loved was the complete lack of a heads up display. Your health is presented as a vertical meter running up the spine of your character, while your ammo is shown on a small holographic screen above your weapon. Both are a blue/green colour when fully stocked, but turn to yellow then red as they are depleted. Everything else is displayed in a similar fashion - incoming video feeds will pop-up in front of you, and even your inventory is accessed via a holograph. You’re never taken fully out of the game, except at the save menu, which leads to some very intense moments when you need to replenish your health in the midst of a fight. But the absolute best use of this non-HUD, is your active objective. When you’re not sure which way to go, clicking the right thumbstick makes your character stop and raise his right hand, projecting a beam of light to the floor, then in the direction you’re meant to go - brilliant!

Tools of the Trade

The arsenal you’re packing in Dead Space is an interesting one. The standard weapon is your trusty Plasma Cutter. It sends a beam of plasma in a short horizontal or vertical line (can be toggled quickly) which cuts through flesh, dismembering limbs and other precious body parts. Through-out the ship, you’ll acquire Power Nodes which you can use to upgrade weapons and armor. It’s a pretty nice system that allows you to beef up the weapons of your fancy, while discarding those you’re not so fond of.

Who Are You and Why Should I Care?

The weakest aspect of the game is the story. It’s not bad, but it’s not mind blowing by any means. The character you play doesn’t speak a word, yet you’re supposed to connect with him and care about his love interest. There just isn’t enough character development for you to give a shit about this guy, or his lady.

Almost Perfect

Dead Space was a very unexpected treat - especially considering the publisher (EA), who typically sticks to pushing out annual sequels than gambling with fresh new IPs. Regardless, I would say Dead Space is in my top 5 games of 2008 and highly recommend it.

Let me introduce you to THiCK. The WooThemes guys gave me free reign on all fronts, with only a small list of specifications to meet - all of which I would have included anyhow. So really, THiCK is pretty damn close to what I would have produced had this been my own project.

THiCK is a beast of a theme! It’s catered towards personal blog authors and packs a pile of features right out of the box, thanks to a number of a custom widgets created by the team at WooThemes. From a design standpoint, it’s extremely flexible. There are 2 main styles (clean and grunge) and a main colour scheme for each (light and dark). From there, you can choose from 5 variant colour schemes that change headings and links through-out the blog. There’s also 2 different header layouts that can be selected from the admin. THiCK is built on the 960 Grid System and the original PSDs are included in the bundle, so customizing further should be a breeze.

I’d like to thank the guys at WooThemes for the opportunity to finally get around to something I’ve pushed to the back-burner far too many times. It was an absolute pleasure working with them over the course of our 3 week stint, and something I would recommend to any fellow designers who might be curious to how a collaboration like this would work.

And finally, my involvement in this project was on the design and XHTML/CSS. WordPress development was handled entirely by WooThemes. I haven’t actually got my hands on the finished product, and am quite curious to see how they handled things like the lifestream and media streams. I should also point out that I’ve noticed a couple minor CSS bugs since I handed the templates off. I’ve already started a conversation with Adii on this topic and will see about getting them sorted out ASAP.

I’m very interested to hear what people have to say about the theme in general, and how it’s been released (via WooThemes). Do you think this is something I should consider doing on a regular basis?

Thanks, But No Thanks

The day after I opened my support request, I received an email outlining the steps I needed to follow in order to ship off my broken console. What I didn’t realized when I was on the phone with support, was that they have adopted a new process which involves for more effort and responsible on the consumer’s end. In all three cases where I had to ship off broken Xbox 360s for repair previously, I had a received a box with custom foam padding and a pre-paid shipping label. All I had to do, was put my console in the box, seal it up with the tape provided, slap on the shipping label, and take it to my nearest Purolator. This time, they expected me to find my own box and padding to ship it in, then print off a label they had emailed to me, and finally ship it off. The instructions clearly state that the box I send it in, will be used to ship the refurbished console back. But also states that I am not to use the original packaging as it will not be returned - what will not be returned? The original packaging, or the console? In any case, I was not about to go out and spend money on a box and something to pad it with. I called Xbox Support again the following Monday and asked to swap to the pre-paid method that I’ve used before, which was no problem. The box was supposed to be delivered within 3 - 5 business days and I was given a new service number. For whatever reason, the box never arrived.

Looking Elsewhere

Once I reached 5 business days passed the point of my second call, I decided to look for an alternate route. The release date for Gears of War 2 is quickly approaching, and I simply can’t miss that! My first thought, was to see if I could find a used console for cheap. eBay returned nothing decent, but Kijiji proved to be a gold mine! I found numerous consoles for under $150, most bundled with extra controllers and games. But on the second page of results, I found an ad for a dude that offered repairs on RRoD consoles. He boasted a fixed rate of $50, a one hour turnaround, and a 30 day guarantee. I fired off an email to touch base, to which I was greeted with instructions to determine the exact error code my console is returning. Apparently, there are a handful of common issues that cause the RRoD, which range from overheating to broken solder points. The latter being a quick fix, and ultimately what my console fell victim to. The repair guy assured me he had he had repaired over 200 consoles successfully and that my error (0020) was the second most common and a very easy fix. I was convinced that this was the way to go, and setup an appointment with him for the very same day.

The Fix

When I showed up at his house, he took me down to his work bench and told me exactly what was wrong and what he was going to do to fix it. The long and short of it, is that he did an “x” clamp replacement, which replaces the flimsy clamps used to hold the CPU and GPU to the motherboard, with bolts that are fastened right to the metal casing inside the plastic shell. While he had it open, he used thermal tape to improve the air flow, which should prevent any possible overheating, provided I have adequate space for the escaped air to go (which I do). I left my previous Elite in his hands and went and played Trism on my iPod and the closest Tim Horton’s for about 45 minutes.

Not Quite Out of the Woods

I returned to his place just as he was finishing the “x” clamp replacement. He fired it up, and no red lights! The logo animation played, the dashboard opened up, then an error popped on screen - E-71. “E-71″ he said, with a slight be of a worried tone. “I haven’t seen too many of those.” I damn near shat my pants at this point - one error for another? The error code the console was returning now, pointed to overheating as the cause. Which didn’t make any sense given that the console hasn’t been used in nearly two full weeks. A quick Google search turned us onto the actual culprit - corrupted BIOS cache. Holding the sync button while powering it on cleared it, and that was that! Good-to-go!

Falcon?

While my console was sitting on his work bench out of its case, I pointed out that it looked quite different from my first Xbox 360’s innards. Apparently, my console is a Falcon model, and I didn’t even know it. I had hoped it had the improved hardware, given the manufactured date, but never knew for certain if that was the case.

Do it Yourself, or Find a Pro in Your Area

Through all of this, I was blown away when I found out some of the causes of the RRoD. Especially now, with early adopter’s consoles reaching the end of the 3 year warranty term. I’m sure a lot of people are just tossing their consoles and buying a new one, when it could be something as simple as a broken solder point. In any case, I’m glad I decided to look for a different avenue to get my console fixed, and happy to be ready for Gears of War 2 next week. I would recommend you look for someone in your area that can do RRoD repairs, if you find yourself in a similar situation.

On Wednesday, October 29, I popped into my local video store in hopes of renting Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, which was released the day prior. To my surprise, they hadn’t received the Motorstorm sequel yet, but they did have Resistance 2 on the shelves. I quickly made a dash for the new games for sale section, where I found one lone copy of Resitance 2. Needless to say, I snatched it up and made my way to the cashier with a silly grin on my face.

Last night I had a chance to sit down with the game, where I fired up the campaign. I tried accessing the online co-op and competitive menus, at which point I was immediately signed out of PlayStation Network. After playing for about an hour and a half, while completing the first couple missions, I was feeling let down on many levels. Keep in mind, that these impressions are based on the first couple missions only. Things might change as I get into it more, but you know what they say about first impressions.

All Aboooard!

I haven’t played a game this linear since Call of Duty 3. There’s absolutely no chance of stumbling off into a dark corner, or heading back the way you came mistakenly. There’s no exploration what-so-ever. Just a clear path, where the door closes behind you as you enter a new room, and obstacles are clearly placed in the way of any potential wrong direction.

There are cinematic moments woven into the gameplay sequences which are an absolute failure. A number of times, my focal point was moved abrutply as I was walking, which made me feel like I was fighting with my controller. Many games have done this sort of thing - where they want to make sure you look in a certain direction to witness an event. Gears of War prompts you to hit the “Y” button. Resistance 2 basically steals your right thumbstick and shifts your view while leaving you with partial control. This actually happened in a scene where I was wrong through a field to cover while taking fire. The last thing I was thinking about, was stopping to check out the view. Bad timing. There are other “moments” that are usually cued by a sound effect and some intense music. The first time I found my self in this situation, I was aware that something was about to go down, but by the time I figured out where it was happening, all that was left was a ripple in the water. I figured I’d just load up my last checkpoint and make sure I was looking in the right direction, but no such option exists.

Worst of all, there are actually a couple points in the first level where you’ll just die if you don’t do exactly what you’re supposed to at the exact moment you’re supposed to do it. I replayed one scenario multiple times to test this theory. And sure enough, even without cause, I would just die if I didn’t follow my allied AI teammate.

<sarcasm> Oh, I Didn’t See That Coming! </sarcasm>

It’s one thing to always no where you’re going, it’s another to always know what’s about to happen. There have been many spots that are meant to catch you off guard and give you a little scare, but no such luck. Instead, I walked into every situation knowing full well that a huge boss was going to come crashing through that massive wall that has no windows or doors, or debris in front of it. The stockpile of rocket launchers in the room may have also tipped me off.

Old School

I felt the first Resistance was behind in the times, in that it didn’t sport a cover system, or destrucrible objects and environments, any kind of squad tactics when you’re fighting alongside allied soldiers, etc. Surprisingly enough, Resistance 2 hasn’t adopted any of these aspects of modern shooters either. I found myself dying a lot during the first level as I couldn’t find much in the way of reliable cover. That’s when I realized that I could park my ass behind a wooden skid that was propped up against a thin metal railing and it would protect me from all incoming enemy fire, including rockets and grenades. The odd wooden crate will break apart, but most objects are indestructible. I shot the hell out of an old radio, and it continued to play the same annoying song as it bounced around the desk it was on.

Trying to Stay Optimistic

When I finished the second level, the first thing that crossed my mind was, “I should have spent this past hour and a half playing Far Cry 2 or Dead Space.” It’s hard to stay optimistic when the fundamental aspects of the game are what’s bringing the experience down for me. At least I can be rest assured that Gears of War 2 will live up to, and likely exceed my expectations. It’s just a shame that the PS3’s top shooter franchise is nowhere near in comparison.

Play

The strange thing about Story mode in LBP, is the sheer lack of story. There’s a hint of a plot, but Story mode essentially exists to get your feet and show you what can be done with the supplied tools. The first play through wraps up in about 6 hours, but each level is packed with 40-80 collectibles which you’ll most definitely have to go back for. Some areas require a sack-buddy as well, so you’ll have to recruite a friend or family member to give you a hand. Thankfully, Media Molecule has done a great job of ensuring every bit of the game can be played co-op, with up to 4 players total. Players on the same PS3 can sign into their respective profiles and collect goodies which are saved to their profile - something that’s not done very often on the PS3.

As you progress through Story mode, the difficulty increases as you might expect. Checkpoints are scattered through-out each level, which aren’t always in the best spot. In most cases, you have a limited amount of lives per checkpoint. Losing all of your lives results in having to replay the level from the beginning, which can be frustrating if you die towards the end. Up until the last level, there was only 2 or 3 that really gave me a run for my money.

Create

Without a doubt, the heart and soul of LBP is Create mode. Everything you experience in Story is forged from the tools and objects you’re given in Create - and there’s a lot of them! Playing through Story will unlock an absolute pile of goodies for use in Create, as will going through the Create tutorials. You’re also awarded creatures, vehicles and other constructed objects through-out Story, which can also be given as rewards in community levels. So, if you’re having a hard time building a working car for example, use one that you acquired from your travels.

Creating a level that’s worthy of sharing requires a serious amount of time and patience. Especially if you’re creating everything from scratch. Create mode can definitely seem daunting initially, but once you’ve completed Story and the tutorials, you have so much at your disposal that it wouldn’t take that long to create something playable. That said, Create isn’t for everyone and I have a feeling many people won’t even touch it. But there’s plenty of content to keep you entertained elsewhere.

Share

There’s a good reason I didn’t slam LBP for it’s short Story mode - the amount of fresh, free content readily available is astounding! During the beta, there was hundreds of user created levels to check out, some of which even more impressive than the packaged levels. I can only imagine how much the community is going to grow in the months to come and am excited knowing I have added another game to my collection that I will be constantly revisiting.

Server Suckiness

Since the entire launch was botched and no actual release date given, I’ve tried to contain my frustrations with the flaky servers powering LBP. But now that the game is readily available to the masses, I’m more than just a little ticked off that yet another PS3 exclusive is failing huge in the online department during its first week. Every aspect of LBP ties into the online servers, so even while playing Story mode, you experience slow downs, stalls, and even crashes. I had to manually reset my PS3 twice last night during one sitting. It got to the point where I was waiting upwards of 3 minutes for a level to load, at which point I jumped to the system settings and disabled the network all together.

Sure, it’s nice not having to pay $60 a year for each active profile on your console. But it sucks not being able to play new releases online during their first week. This is the second PS3 exclusive title (SOCOM: Confrontation was the first) this month to suffer massive online problems during launch week. And with Resistance 2 (which features 8 player co-op and 64 person multiplayer) around the corner, I can only assume we’re in for more of the same.

The Verdict

Yes, it’s cute. Yes, it was worth the wait. Yes, it’s worth picking up a PS3 for - you won’t find anything like LittleBigPlanet anywhere else.

Game of the Year

Having only logged a dozen or so hours with the LittleBigPlanet beta, I’m fully ready to call it 2008’s Game of the Year. It’s truly unfortunate that PS3 nay-sayers and those that think it’s nothing but a cute game are going to miss out. Everything about LittleBigPlanet shines. And with it having such a strong community focus, there is always going to be fresh content at the ready. I see a permanent spot for LBP on my media rack.

In preparation for the awesome things I’m going to create, I picked up the PlayStation Eye camera. With the camera, you can take pictures of yourself, objects, genitalia, and what-have-you. Then make stickers out of them for use in the game. Stickers are used to colour surfaces and add decorative flare. I’m fully creating an Addison monster!

Of course, there are other uses for the camera similar to what the Xbox 360 is capable of - video chat, motion sensing games, etc. But there’s also a free app for creating and editing clips right on the PS3. I know Hannah will have some fun with that - she’s always creating videos with her friends on my iMac.

Back to Warhawk

The only PS3 game that’s remained in my collection from its initial purchase is Warhawk. It’s always fun to jump in for a few quick games. It’s not one of those games that you have to keep at to be good at. It’s very accessible, and always fun. I realized this during a memorable battle where I found myself cornered by 2 enemy Warhawks. Manned with a jetpack and a rocket launcher, I used my afterburner to launch straight up in the air, high above the Warhawks. As I started to fall, I slowed my decent by hovering just long enough to lock-on and fire off rockets at each of the enemy aircraft. By the time returned to the ground, there was nothing but flaming debris falling form the sky. EPIC!

SOCOM: Confrontation came out a week ago today, but has been plagued by server stability issues, which is not good for an online game. I picked it up anyway, primarily for the Bluetooth headset. You can’t go wrong paying $60 for a sleek piece of hardware and a game. Microsoft’s standalone wireless headset retails for $10 more and pales in comparison on both the aesthetic and quality fronts.

Quenching My Thirst for Achievements

They’re more than a little late to the party, but Trophies are now a part of most new PS3 titles. Some older games have also been patched to include Trophies. I’m currently working my way through Uncharted again and having a lot of fun claiming my prizes. While playing Warhawk a couple nights ago, I was stoked to see the little Trophy notification (for Vengeance - Kill an enemy within 60 seconds of that enemy killing you) pop up just as I took down an enemy aircraft. It’s a shame that haven’t been able to do retroactive Trophies. Having to replay games and unlock Trophies you’ve technically already earned is a bit of a drag. But then again, I might not be replaying Uncharted if that wasn’t the case.

In short, Sony has done a great job of maturing the PlayStation 3 and bringing it up to speed with Microsoft’s cancerous console. If it weren’t for Xbox 360 exclusive franchises like Gears of War and Halo, I could probably live without my Xbox 360.

When I first learned of the story behind Hell’s Highway, I was more than intrigued. After-all, Operation Market Garden was anything but a glorious moment for the Allies. With most war games placing you in the position of the victorious hero, I knew the campaign was going to play out differently as defeat was inevitable.

This third installment in the Brothers in Arms series packs a fantastic story that follows Baker and his squad through some horrific moments. Through truly emotional cinematics, you watch as fallen squad-mates are mourned, civilians are slaughtered, and trust is broken. Hell’s Highway refers back to the original game in the series, Road to Hill 30 and reveals some of scenarios that were only touched on briefly. One being what really happened to Allen and Garnet when they were put under command of Leggett. Through the campaign Baker takes a beating, both emotionally and physically. By the end of it, his face is riddled with scares. What really got me was the closing cinematic where Baker sits down with an old comrade in what was the most sincere and touching moment I’ve witnessed in a game.

“Every Soldier Has Two Families. Those You Raise, and Those You Raise Hell With”

Sure, we’ve played several games where squad-mates tag along, but rarely have they been useful or effective. The Brothers in Arms series has always stood out in this crowd. I love having the option to sit back and command my teams to execute suppression and flanking maneuvers without firing a shot myself. In the later missions, I found myself doing this more and more as situations were simply too chaotic to be in the middle of the action myself. Instead of hunkering behind a low wall and popping off shots, I would position my teams and have them suppress the enemies while I ran around and found weak spots in their defenses to pick them off.

Hell’s Highway brings a couple new teams to the battlefield. While each mission varies, you end up having a machine gun team and a bazooka team at your disposal. The MG team can lay down enough fire to keep several enemies at bay while you move in for the kill. The bazooka team is just a whole lot of fun! They can take down vehicles, blow sandbag emplacements to bits, and send German soldiers flying with limbs detached.

Glorious Bloody Moments

Speaking of which - this game is all kinds of gory. And in the best possible way! There are now these action moments where a perfect headshot or a well placed grenade will trigger a quick pan and zoom from the camera to show you the affect of your precision. I’ve seen several reviews complain about these, as they do take you out of the action for a few seconds. But I enjoyed each and every one of them. There’s an option to disable them entirely if you wish, but then you’ll miss out on a few associated Achievements by doing so.

To Be Continued…

I couldn’t have been more pleased to see these words on screen as the campaign came to a close. Not only have they confirmed there will be another sequel, but a hint is dropped during the last cinematic which points to the location - and it’s one I’m very happy about.

The Brothers in Arms series isn’t for everyone. It’s not a run-and-gun, throw grenades while firing and jumping backwards repeatedly type of game that you might be used to. And as such, it’s well worth a look.

Coming Up With Something Different

Since I had been sporting the same layout and design for so long, I wanted to really switch things up and go drastically different. At the same time, I wanted to maintain the image that people have come to know me for. My initial goals were…

• Anything but black. Preferably dark text on light background. Stick with pink as main accent colour.
• No visual horizontal division. Attempt vertical division.
• Come up with new section heading/sub-heading treatment and/or placement.

I managed to come up with a pretty unique layout with my first wireframe. The idea with the ideas, was that they would be mini-tabs along the left margin. Clicking them would push the entire site to the right, revealing a tray that contains all of the headings and descriptive text. While I thought this was a great concept and would raise some eyebrows, I knew it would be a nightmare for older and lower spec machines. Not to mention, some people might not even notice them and wonder what all of the content actually was. In short, hiding the headings by default wasn’t the greatest idea.

My second wireframe corrected this potential issue by dumping the headings in a gutter off to the right. Having them as part of the main container meant I had less space for content, so some rearranging took place.

Doing Away With Black

I assume 2 things come to mind when people think of my old design - grunge and black. All along, my intentions were to stick with the grunge theme, but I definitely wanted to move away from dark colours primarily. I started working with beige and light browns, and after much tinkering with adjustment layers, settled on a colour scheme.

For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what to do with the header and footer. I wanted to have the headings separated from the content area visually, but that gutter would be made wider for the article layout where it would be re-purposed as the sidebar. I had tried stretching the header and footer from edge-to-edge, but didn’t like the “T” shape it produced. After much fiddling, I decided to restrict the entire site in a container.

Back to Freelance

You may have noticed that there was no place for my design work on the homepage in the previous mocks. Up until March of this year, I had been working for a design studio and wasn’t able for hire. When I made my return to the freelance world, I revisited the homepage and put in a prominent space to promote my work.

It wasn’t long before I overhauled the design section to make it even more prominent. At the same time, I came up with the idea of separating blog and design related items in the main navigation. With the exception of the header, I was really happy with how things had come together and considered the homepage complete.

So Much For Change

Over the past year or so, I’ve taken a liking to brown. I own some brown clothes, and Deanna picked up this great set of luggage that’s brown with white and pink lining. I absolutely loved that combination and decided to give it a go. I posted a side-by-side comparison on Flickr to get some perspective from my peers in the field, and see which people were favouring. Some great points were raised and I decided to go with the brown.

Last Minute Decisions

One thing I was never crazy about was the length of the homepage. As much as I liked giving my readers a place on the homepage (recent comments), it was something I could do without. At the same time, I came up with idea of the thought bubble for my latest Twitter update, so that was one less thing adding length to the page. As I mentioned before, I wasn’t stoked on the header - primarily the nav and the “logo”. So I took another stab at it and came up with something much better.

The last thing to change before I started building the site out was the primary colours for each section. I had kept the colours from my previous design, but they were just too stark against the brown.

And that’s it. The final mock was locked down and I moved onto the XHTML/CSS phase.

What the Hell Happened?

Pandemic Studios aren’t exactly new to the game. With solid games like the Star Wars Battlefront and Destroy All Humans series under their belt, not to mention the original Mercenaries game, I had come to expect great things from them. It goes without saying, that my opinion has changed. But you have to wonder, what the hell happened here? The game was delayed about a year from its original release date, and you’d think in that time they would have been able to squash the remaining bugs and put a coat of polish on it. Maybe it was publisher pressure and EA was breathing down their necks? Perhaps they blew their budget making the explosions look awesome? Whatever the case, Mercenaries 2 feels unfinished and broken. And as such, I’m not going to get into the story or mission objectives, instead I’m going to tell you why you should avoid this game like the plague.

Shut Up Already!

You want to talk about annoying? During my first sit down with the game, I noticed how frequently phrases were being repeated by enemies and friendlies alike. Most notably, your director in the field Fiona, has an awful habit of reciting the same line every 5 minutes or so. Even while in the middle of a mission or while carrying an HVT on your back, she’ll remind you that you can always go back and talk to her if you get lost or stuck on what to do next. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll come back and talk to you… and shove a grenade done your throat!” And of course, there’s no option to disable dialog in the field, only in cut-scenes. This is by no means a show stopper, but it definitely takes the overall enjoyment down a notch or two..

Ummm, You Missed!

I was stoked when I had the drunken pilot join my team. That meant I could do air strikes and rain down hell on my enemies. Problem is, he misses the damn target more than he hits it! I wan’t joking when I said he was drunk - he’s literally a washed up drunk. And I guess the devs thought it would be funny to have him miss the targets you’ve pointed out for him. Sure, the concept of a jet pilot dropping a bomb on the wrong building because he’s loaded is pretty funny. But when he misses three laser guided drops in a row, causing you to have to replay the mission… well, that’s not so funny.

They’re With Stupid

The AI in Mercenaries 2 is unbearably bad. Enemies rush you as soon as you’re within range, putting themselves directly in your line of fire, only to take a dozen bullets before finally going down. You might have noticed that I didn’t say visual range in that last sentence - that was intentional. They may be dumb as rocks, but they can see through walls! At one point, I was in a garage and the door had just shut behind me. There were no windows at all, yet I heard a passer-by exclaim, “Hey, it’s the mercenary!”

During one mission, I was taking my time making my way behind enemy lines when a baddie triggered an alarm. When this happens, previously unoccupied buildings spring to life, packed to the tits with dudes wielding rocket launchers. At first they seemed very intimating and I would keep my distance. Then I realized that they would fire no matter how close you were. So if I found myself in this situation with plenty of health, I would run up to a corner of the building and wait… BOOM! In a matter of seconds, the entire building would be destroyed, as it seems the dummies inside were trying to shoot me through the wall and in turn, blew themselves up. This sort of thing happens a lot when you try and commandeer vehicles, particularly tanks. They’ll fire at you, no matter how close you are, and in most cases, destroy themselves.

Glitches and Bugs Galore

I’d be here all day if I were to list all of the bugs I witnessed in the 7 hours I spent with Mercenaries 2. But I’d like to share my favourite that I happened four or five times. Which doesn’t make them bugs, so much as flaws.

As you may know, Mercenaries is unique in that you balance your relationship with different factions. Each faction has you taking over another faction’s outposts, capturing key personnel, and the like. So the balance is always shifting and you’re always in someone’s shit books. When you’re in good graces with a faction, you can make use of their vehicles and recruit allied soldiers to give you some added fire power. While on route to an enemy outpost, I stopped at a checkpoint and grabbed a friendly APC and honked the horn to signal near-by soldiers to hop in. Three did so, but as soon as I crossed the barrier at the checkpoint, they jumped out and started firing at me. I guess they were fine with me jacking their ride, as long as I didn’t cross that imaginary line. This didn’t happen every time I took a friendly vehicle, just some times. But in every case, I was above 90% friendly with the faction.

Another bug that happens to be a huge annoyance as well, is the on-screen hint system. No matter how many times you do something, it always pops up a hint for every step of the way. And if you perform the action too fast, the hint will stick on that step until you completed the action. In some cases, this might happen while you’re getting into a vehicle and the hint won’t go away until you exit.

What Multiplayer?

Mercenaries 2 sports online 2-player co-op. I’ve only seen a couple friends playing in the short time I’ve owned the game, but never when I was playing. So I wasn’t able to match up and grab the easy 50 point Achievement simply for playing co-op. But last night when I reached my breaking point, I figured I would join a quick game, grab that Achievement, then take the game out of my 360 for good. When I selected Quick Match from the multiplayer menu, it made the cha-ching sound it does when you advance screens, but nothing happened. I pressed “A” again… cha-ching. WTF? It simply wouldn’t work. So I jumped into the Custom Game options, which loaded right away. I left everything set to “Any” and hit the search button… nothing. Not even a sound this time. I tried restarting my console, but it didn’t make a lick of difference. This game is broken.

Don’t Do It! It’s Not Worth It

When I started to become overwhelmed by the bugs and general sloppiness of the game (which was about an hour in), I tried to look on the bright side - blowing shit up is fun, and the Achievements are plentiful. But when blowing shit up became tedious and frustrating, and I was prevented from earning Achievements due to the game being broken, it became apparent that there really is no point to spending any more time with Mercenaries 2. The bugs and flaws out-weigh the good by far, and seeing the potential this game holds just makes it all the more frustrating that it’s as bad as it is.

Stale. Wait, is that Mold?

The first thing I had to do, was get get people talking about my blog and my work again. It’s been a while since I’ve done something or rolled out a project that’s received a lot of attention, and my previous design was quickly approaching it’s three year anniversary (November 1). The response to this new design has been amazing and I’ve already been featured in a bunch of showcase galleries and mentioned in a handful of articles, which has resulted in a substantial increase in traffic. Whoo!

I Probably Should Have Hung Onto…

One thing I took for granted over the years was passive income - making money from projects that require little-to-no maintenance. When Feed Icons was in its prime and prior to the Google smack-down on the text link ad services, I was making $500-$600 each month from ads. Sure, those aren’t huge numbers, but that’s enough to cover a few bills or purchase eight or nine full priced games.

In the late months of 2007, shortly after launching a redesign, I decided to sell Feed Icons. I banked half of the money to help prepare for my wife’s maternity leave, and picked up a glorious 40″ Samsung TV. Clearly, I don’t regret making that move. But I soon realized just how nice it was to receive a couple hundred bucks each month from the AdSense on that site.

In my last post, many people suggested re-introducing ads by way of a service like BuySellAds.com. I signed up and was approved for a beta account the same day. After spending a bit of time setting things up, I thought it was foolish to use this service and lose 25% off the top of every sale, when I could host and manage the ads myself. Sure, there’s a bit more maintenance involved and I spent about 6 hours setting it all up, but I get to keep 100% of the profit. Once I found my way around, OpenX proved to be just what I needed to get the job done. Now it’s dead simple to swap ads in and out, and even schedule them so I don’t have to remember when to take them down. It’s been about 48 hours since I soft launched, and 6 of 8 of the ad spots are already reserved.

Keeping Up Appearances

When I made the switch to working for a design firm back in 2007, I stopped maintaining a lot of my online profiles on social networking sites. So, to anyone new that came across my blog, work, or caught wind of a project I was involved in, it appeared I had fallen off the internet. Again, I took services like Carbonmade and LinkedIn for granted. I’ve been using both for years now, and have made several connections with both new clients and freelance allies through them. But when I stopped maintaining them, I stopped making new connections. A couple days after giving my Carbonmade portfolio an overhaul, I received a very promising lead from someone who found me there. Granted, that was by way of the interview I just did a few days ago, but still. Had I not updated my portfolio, I doubt they would have wanted to speak me.

But Wait, There’s More…

I’m feeling pretty good about the progress I’ve made in improving my online presence and generating a passive income revenue stream. And that’s just in the span of a couple weeks. Here’s my short list of other ways to expand and grow…

Release Some WordPress Themes

I like to think that my rates are reasonable, but I don’t come cheap by any means. It’s always a drag when I’m replying to a new lead and I know full well I won’t be hearing from that person again. Although I’ve started offering customization of premium themes, there are still a lot of people who want something designed by me but don’t have the budget for it. I’m going to release both free and premium themes in the very near future. Some of which will be inspired heavily by some of my more popular work.

Start a New Side-Project

I thought this was going to be difficult, but I’ve already established a partnership relationship with a developer and we’re well on our way in the brainstorming stage. While this will be a side-project, it will be seeing some dedicated time from myself and the developer over the next couple months.

Share My Knowledge and Experience

I wish I had more tutorials and tips in my archives, but I’m lacking that department big time. I’m going to make an effort to release more of that sort of content in the form of articles and screencasts in the coming months. The topic of freelance seems to be one that many people are willing to chime in on, so I’m thinking of keeping the flow of posts like this coming as well.

What Do You Want to See From Me?

I can come up with whatever ideas I like, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to fly. After-all, most of them rely on you to accept and desire them to be truly successful.

I’ve thought of taking my design skills in different directions, like branching out into the real world and trying my hand at some posters, buttons, and other geek merchandise. But would anyone want that sort of thing? Perhaps there’s something else you would love to see my trademark grunge style inflicted on?