I'd Like to Solve the Puzzle

While doing jig-saw puzzles, I like to look at the box. What is wrong with that? According to my family, everything! They complain that I am cheating, but I heartily disagree. To me, using the box does not bypass a hard skill in puzzle-solving, but instead it bypasses the boring factor. I like putting together pieces of the puzzle that make a fun picture, and using the box lets me have an idea of what that picture is so I have a vision of the masterpiece I am creating. It is similar to a painter sketching a picture on the canvas or on another piece of paper to use as a reference while painting the real thing. So while to one person it is cheating, to me it is a way to make the puzzle more enjoyable.


While on the topic of puzzles, I am reminded of a recent Wii game purchase: Wheel of Fortune. I got it for Deanna for Christmas, and after playing it and watching a couple of other games, I have enough for a quick Review. Check out my Review Guidelines if you do not know what my categories mean.

Wheel of Fortune (Wii)
Overall Game - B
Game Play - B+
Visual Design - B-

The game is really fun to play, though the quality is a lot better when playing multiplayer. The computer opponents are fine, but we noticed that besides adding a better competitive atmosphere, it was generally more fun and balanced with human opponents. The Mini-Games between rounds are entertaining, although they are not really very necessary as they only impact a contestant's popularity with the audience, which cheers for everyone anyways.

The graphics are of typicall Wii fasion (that is, cheap to compensate for the Wii's weaker graphics abilities, but friendly enough to work) and enjoyable, although it would have been really easy to improve the lip-synching with Pat Sajak's Mii character since the lips could have been done better by a five year-old doing clay-mation. It was not a huge setback though, but it was distracting enough to bring the Visual Design down to a B-, although the rest of the animation was either decent or cute.

The Mii characters are also used, allowing the players to use their own faces. Their vocal sounds are also fun and interesting. The characters are very excited when they guess a letter. Also, if you have the Wii Speak feature on your Wii, you can record your own sounds for good and bad events! The puzzles are fun and have difficultly levels to choose from, so it will never be too easy or too hard if you adjust the difficulty.

Overall Verdict: B. It is not my favorite game I have ever played, but it is a great addition to the Wii's list of games catering to the non-gamer, and is a great family game that I can easily get my mom to play!

Game Review Guidelines

Since I have lately been continuing a trend of reviewing movies in my blog, I thought it might be fun to also review games as well, to include electronic and board games alike. In each review, I will give a letter grade to several game categories, as well as to the overall game as a whole. For your reference, here are the various categories and a brief explanation:

Video Games
Overall Game - Overall grade of the game based on the below qualities
Game Play - How well does the game work? Are the game mechanics done well, or are controls awkward? If a plot is involved, is it done well?
Visual Design - Quality of graphics and how well they are utilized?

Board Games
Overall Game - Overall grade of the game based on the below qualities
Game Play - Is the game fun, or tedious? Does it seem balanced, or are there rules that make game play unbalanced?
Visual Design - Are the compenents good quality, or are they cheap? If they are cheap, do they detract from the overall quality?

Tangled and Dawn Treader reviewed

We recently we to see two movies, Tangled and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, over the last few days. (In case you are my family reading this and are expecting to see these over Christmas, don't worry; I don't mind a repeat.)

Tangled- A+
In Tangled, Disney managed to take a very short and uninteresting fairy tale, and make it their own fun adventure, with the actual fairy tale really being told within the first few minutes, but still maintaining its relevancy throughout the rest of the film. To be honest, I was skeptical of their abilities to transform Rapunzel into a full-length feature film, but I was blown away its high quality. Disney took the idea, and made it their own. In typical Disney fashion, there was comedy, action, adventure, and romance in this digital masterpiece.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader- B
In Narnia, the franchise seemed to partially rebound from a disastrous second installment. (I would rate Lion Witch and the Wardrobe as an A, with Prince Caspian as a solid C.) The film was forced to deviate from the book due to the book's lack of an actual plot as it is instead formed by a series of independent scenes strung together with no driving force behind it, but the changes were as well-done as they could be. Where Prince Caspian lacked in believable characters and in wise plot-deviations, Dawn Treader improved in both categories. The only detriments were from my favorite scene being omitted (which could be caused from the needed plot-alteration) and a few scenes that could have been directed better and with smoother transitions. It was a very difficult film to pull off, and I am confident that it will allow for The Silver Chair to follow, which has the potential to be the best in the franchise since Wardrobe. Even better, Eustace was cast extremely well and will be great for the next installment. I was also thrilled that Aslan's line about being present in our world, but with a different name, was left intact.

Netflix Reviews

My wife and I have been avid fans of Netflix ever since we subscribed, and once they came out with their Wii disc, we have only used it so much more as we can now stream many shows and movies straight to our TV. After watching a movie last night, I thought I would make a short list of recent shows or movies we have watched on Netflix and give a short rating. All ratings are out of five stars.

2012 - C+
Just as the Mayan calendar predicts, the world will end as we know it in 2012. The movie is entertaining and has some quite excellent "end of the world" scenes. I would definately watch parts of it again just for the special effects. As for the plot, they unfortunately seem to have mastered the overuse of combing "too good to be true" with "too bad to be true." I can only take so many earthquake-created cracks in the ground which just so happen to come up right under the main character. In just about every disaster shown, the main character is a second our two from death, and it gets to be a bit much. Otherwise, as long as you overlook that the Mayan Calendar doesn't actually predict the end of the world (it is merely counting up to a cosmic event-- aligning of the planets-- that was a very sacred idea for them), it can be an entertaining movie-- it just needs to curb some of the disasters.

The Box - F
A couple is given a box with a button, and if they press the button, the get a million dollars. The catch? A stranger will die. It is an interesting concept, however they instead made a movie which dragged on and on and it was extremely confusing, and I mean that in a bad way. Mission Impossible was confusing to some, but that is why I liked it. In this case, it just missed the mark, and besides being confusing, the ending did not entirely jive with the rest of the movie, creating a minor continuity issue.

Murder She Wrote - C+
We have only watched two episodes, and although the pilot was LONG, the show is still entertaining. However, we have decided that Jessica Fletcher is far too trusting of total strangers, dark alleyways, and being alone in the same room with a murderer whom she is confronting.

Doctor Who - A+
Action combined with light British humor at its best, this is our second time through the modern series as we recap before watching the current season. The only bad thing about rewatching the modern episodes is that we know we will have to watch David Tennant leave the show.

Bones- A-
Another typical crime drama? No! The show has a unique blend of forensics, character development, and great humor as the genius (and socially inept) forensic anthropologist solves crimes by looking at bones, along with her FBI partner.

Mystery Science Theater 3000- B-
Really funny show making fun of old cheesy movies. Need I say more?