Godzilla: Unleashed

I've gotta admit, I've been playing the hell out of Godzilla: Unleashed the last few days.

I bought this game used at Rogers Video..... whoa, over a year ago??? Sheesh. And I hadn't even really played it til now. I was probably hoping I'd have time last summer to play it. Like the previous Godzilla game, Godzilla: Save the Earth for Xbox, these are good summertime games.

Godzilla videogames are like Godzilla movies: they get terrible reviews from the critics, but they are mindless fun. There's a lot to dislike about Godzilla: Unleashed-- the controls are sluggish, clunky and not always responsive. The storyline is cheesy & just a series of static comicbook-style pictures for the cutscenes, with terrible voicework. But for a G-fan like me, it is surprisingly fun. The graphics are great, the monsters sound/look right, and the cheeziness just makes it feel more like a Godzilla movie. But for the average videogamer that doesn't know those old movies, this game probably wouldn't stand up on its own.

I've also just started playing Deadspace: Extraction... it seems like an ok game, but it wasn't quite as compelling as a jump-in-and-play fighting game like Godzilla: Unleashed. I will go back to it when I'm in the right mood. And I've been playing Deadly Creatures, it is a nice game but very slow-paced and the lack of map coupled with generic routes means you have to visualize the entire level in your mind, which is tiresome. Now I'm currently playing Tron 2.0: Killer App on Xbox... an old gift.... my previous save file was from Dec. 2006... yeesh.....



later
don

Olympic Torch

Yup I've only been watching the 2010 Olympics for the last 2 weeks and not much else... besides being ill (again?!) ugh..... my TV shows have been piling up on my PSPgo, waiting to be watched & deleted. What's cool is that I recently got an 8GB CF card at Costco for like $9.97 or something. great price, and it seems to work in my Neuros Recorder II+ fine. Now I can record like 15 hours of TV or something? For $10.00 that's pretty sweet.

So I have to admit... I have a bit of gadget-lust for the 2010 Olympic torch. It just looks very cool; sleek & elegant design with metal trim that reminds me of a PSP.





I kinda want one... now I wish I'd put my name in to be a torch bearer or whatever the process was. I'm sure I could buy one off of eBay, but I really don't want an overpriced USED model... I'd rather it be new, clean or if used, then used by me.





Just another one of those things that falls into the useless-but-cool category like the Sony Rolly.



later
don

Jabra Halo bluetooth headphones

So I've spent the last week or so being tortured by these Jabra Halo bluetooth headphones that I bought. I believe they are the model that I saw in Hong Kong & regretted passing up on.... I got them from Future Shop during a sale.

I like the PSPgo Bluetooth headphone remote, but I really want to be free from wires altogether, and I also want the ease of over-the-head headphones. There are very few of those that are bluetooth, and fewer still that aren't HUGE.

The Jabra Halo bluetooth headphones were at times very nice but other times frustrating as hell. There are some really good things about them, and I really REALLY want to like them. But the problems are just too much.

The good - they are so comfortable.... the outside band is a soft vinyl, while the inside and earphones are a really nice soft velvet. They are fairly stiff, and shaped with the earphones slanting "outward" to try to mimic the ear shape.





They fold up, making them a bit more compact. It's also how they turn off apparently.



The sound is pretty good. It's better than I thought it would be, and it's actually a bit better sound quality than the PSPgo bluetooth remote. The Jabra halo control placement is good, though instead of having touch volume controls, they should have made those tactile buttons; a volume rocker button.



The bad - I had connection problems nearly right away... it paired with my PSPgo fine at first, but none of the controls on the headphones worked. And I kept having to re-pair it every time I turned off & on my PSPgo. So I was thinking, "these are not going to work out... damn I really like them too....." and was determined to return them.

Then yesterday I re-paired them for the upteenth time and adjust the bluetooth profile on the PSPgo first to HSP (mono headset profile)-- that was pretty bad sound quality, but the volume and play/pause buttons finally worked! So then I switched it to AVRCP and the sound quality went back to stereo yet the headphone controls kept working. Success, I hoped. Maybe I'll keep them after all!

But then I kept having problems where the PSPgo and the headphones kept thinking they were paired, but no sound was coming out of them. One time I even got the controls to work, but there was no sound. What the...????

Also all the removing and adding of the Jabra bluetooth profile kept causing my PSPgo to freeze on a "please wait..." screen.

So I've decided that I just can't win this one.... I'll be taking them back tomorrow. Sucks, I really like them & just want them to work. I don't think it's a bad unit, from all the reviews I've read it seems like pairing is a consistant problem, which is odd considering Jabra is all ABOUT bluetooth-- you'd think they'd know how to do it RIGHT.

But that's another sad thing I've noticed about bluetooth... there are NO good bluetooth headphones that stand out in the field. Every model I've come across has poor reviews. I have no idea why bluetooth headphones are so hard to create.



later
don