Fraize Dotcom

Man, I love how my mom and dad can go to the next hemisphere over, and I can keep an eye on them via a webcam.

It is said that there are two kinds of sci-fi geeks: Star Wars Geeks and Star Trek Geeks. Oh, I know – most like both, but we have to be honest with ourselves and each other and admit that we definitely like one over another. It may come as no surprise to most who know me that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Star Trek Geek.

So, when I heard that there was going to be a starship-combat simulator game for the XBox 360, I was willing to walk through a Rite of Ascention to get it, pain-sticks be damned. I must show you my heart!! I put it on my birthday list, but the game was delayed by nearly a month. My sister promised it to me, but it never arrived, so I got a Star Wars game instead (poetic justice). I found a copy of Star Trek: Legacy at my local Game Stop in Leesburg on Sunday, and picked it up.

Breathlessly, I took it home and popped it in. I was greeted with the happy startup sounds that are in the trademark Bethesda Softworks splash screen. Those sounds have been welcome to me with their nearly perfect game Elder Scrolls IV – Oblivion. A good start.

However, the game had nearly no intro – jumping right into a mission piloting the NX-01 Enterprise helping out a Vulcan ship under attack from Romulans. The first few missions are tutorials – teaching you the control scheme. I think Bethesda Softworks should get credit for making the 360 controller an effective interface for the game. It was very similar to Star Trek combat simulators for the PC that made use of the mouse and keyboard. Simplifying that process for the 360 controller had to be no small task.

However, the game is unbelievably dull. I played a few missions in the Archer Enterprise universe, then went on into Skirmish mode, where I can customize my missions. I wanted to see what the Next Generation ships were like after moving sluggishly through the 22nd century ships. Suddenly, I was piloting the USS Defiant against ever increasingly difficult hoards of Borg vessels. I guess I was expecting something beautiful and choreographed like I was used to seeing when the Defiant dodged and blasted its way through waves of Cardassian and Dominion and Breen ships. Instead, ships passed each other so fast they were mere blurs, too fast for more than one volley of fat-fingered photons at a time. There wasn’t enough time to perform all the nuances of starship combat, even though my ship was capable of it. You can adjust power allocation between engines, shields and weapons, you can send damage control teams to specific areas of the ship, but when things get hairy, forget about it. All you have time for is pointing your targeting reticle and jamming on the fire triggers.

I realized that this game just wasn’t fun. There was very little nuance to the game. Target enemy vessel, adjust ship’s aspect to bring your photons to bear, fire, repeat. Snore. Maybe I was expecting too much, but this game is going back to Game Stop.

One of my Christmas gifts this year was Gears of War. For those who don’t know, it’s a video game for the XBox 360… one of those shoot-em-ups. Let me tell you, this game stresses me out to the point where I really can’t play it any more.

I came to that realization last night when I got to the scene in the “Conservatory,” where there’s a 12 foot tall monster called a “Berzerker.” The first time I saw this thing, I shriek’d like a little girl. The second time, I was just so stressed out over trying to figure out how to defeat it, I just froze.

I couldn’t figure out how to defeat it, so I turned the game off. A quick mental inventory, and I realized I was completely stressed out and physically felt bad! Normally, video games are a good stress-reliever, and a great diversion, but this game did neither.

So, as stunning as this game is, and how smart the AI is, and how challenging it can be, I can’t give it a good review. A game is something I like, and I just don’t like this game.

So, I am lame.

As is the style on January 1, I’m going to offer my predictions for the new year. The fun part is checking this list again next year to see how well I did. I always wanted to do that, but now I finally gotten around to it.

Bush

Continue on as president, and won’t be impeached. Oh, sure, there will be investigations, a couple of low-end indictments, but he’ll continue on. His mouthpieces, however, will continue blowing hard with the same hubris and ultra-nationalism they always have. Now, their targets will be the newly Democratic House and Senate.

Presidential Nominees

Tom Vilsack will prove to be a very enthusiastic front-runner, energizing the democratic base, but in true Howard Dean-like fashion, he’ll fall away for someone else to take the nomination. We’ll know by November who the Democratic nominee will be. The Republicans will continue to splinter and fracture as they search for their power center. The religious right will be unable to put forth their candidate as the front-runner, and will likely back a third candidate. A more moderate McCain (but not McCain)-like candidate will take the candidacy. The Veep nomination will go to a religious-right candidate, but not the front-runner, in an attempt to reconcile. This will fail, setting up a 3rd party candidate situation.

Iraq

Happily, things will quiet down in Iraq. The more Americans move out, the less interested the other parties will become. Iraq won’t be stable for many years to come, though.

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray

Sony’s Blue-Ray will stay in the game, despite being a little behind in the race at the beginning of the year. There will be some renegotiating on Blu-Ray’s exclusivity with some movie companies. HD-DVDs will be printed from all movie company’s except Sony Pictures by years end. However, that does not mean HD-DVD will “win” or “lose.” The fight won’t be decided this year. Net-delivery will prove to be more and more popular.

Microsoft

All new computers will ship with Windows Vista, but by year’s end, XP will still be the dominant desktop. Mac OS X will break the 6% market-share barrier. Microsoft’s TV download service will be improved by allowing people to backup their tv-show purchases to external USB hard-drives.

Apple

Apple will release a new ultra-slim ultra-portable MacBook. Their other lines will continue evolutionary improvements. Quad-core processors will be introduced into the iMac line by year’s end. The full-screen iPod won’t be released. Instead, Apple will continue to focus on the iPod Mini, improving battery life and increasing storage. There will be a 20G iPod Mini by year’s end. The iTV will be released with little fanfare, but in typical Apple fashion, they’ll let the community develop for it, making a phenomenon out of it. Apple will start offering HD TV and movie downloads as they fight for the IPTV delivery crown.

My Car

My beloved Prius ‘Sparky’ will have a couple of mechanical problems resulting in a couple of 4-figure repairs. It will probably last through the year, but will have to be replaced in 2008.

My Laptop

One significant repair will put my 17″ PowerBook G4 in the shop for a month, but he’ll need to be replaced by year’s end. However, if he does get replaced, it will be by a less expensive model.