Look for a more complete review soon…

Design

First, I will touch on the overall construct. The Rubik’s 360 is comprised of three spheres, one inside of the other. The inner and middle spheres spin around on two different offset axes relative to one another. The inner sphere houses six colored balls, when the puzzle is reset, and has one hole for the balls to enter the middle sphere. The middle sphere has just enough space for the balls to roll around between inner and middle, with two holes – one for each track of the outer sphere. The outer sphere has six compartments, with colored rings corresponding to the colors of each ball. There are three of these compartments to each hemisphere, which has locking tracks that are controlled by two knobs on both sides of the puzzle.

Operation

The object is to maneuver the colored balls so that they pass through the hole in the inner sphere, then either of the two hole in the middle sphere, and finally into their corresponding compartment in the outer sphere. This would be an easy thing for anyone to do, but Mr. Rubik won’t let this be a minor task. Embedded in the inner and middle spheres are weights located opposite of the holes. This turns the 360 into a gravity manipulation puzzle, and it makes it a challenge to maneuver the spheres to get the balls where they need to go, especially when one has to work with two offset axes.

Difficulty

Even fighting between manipulating gravity and offset axes, the Rubik’s 360 is not terribly hard to solve. I won’t give away the solution here, since one can use either strategy, or pure dumb luck, to solve the puzzle. I will say this, however; fiddling around with the puzzle and observing how the spheres move on each axis is the vital key in successful completion.

Final Thoughts

My verdict on the Rubik’s 360? Despite the name, this puzzle is not to be confused with a combination puzzle like Rubik’s infamous Cube. It is a gravity manipulation puzzle that has more in common with tabletop marble maze games. It is challenging to be sure; however, with enough concentration on physical movement and simple observation of the gravity mechanics and axes of movement, I could see someone solving this in less than a day. It took me a couple of hours the first time I tried it. Even so, the beautiful construction and ergonomic design make it something that is pleasing, almost relaxing to play around with, even if one can solve it in a few minutes. I find myself coming back to it just to admire it, if not resetting it for another go-round.

Highly recommended for almost any age!

When you start the game, you’re first treated to an opening movie showing your hero battling it out with a bunch of guys and a nasty cyclops-resembling monster. This was very impressive, but a little misleading as the high-quality animation made me believe that all of the cutscenes would be like that. Cutscenes are, of course, the chocolate-chips in every gamer’s dream cookie. The rest of the game had cutscenes that were impressive in showing you the scope and breadth of where you are in the game, but nothing approaching that cinema quality.

The menu is very straightforward and I had very little problems navigating it and learning what everything does. The options menu has settings for game hints (on/off), music and sound effects level sliders and has localization of several common languages. The new game option has standard difficulty options: easy, normal and a “heroic” mode which is unlockable after beating the game on either difficulty.

Gameplay is a real treat, especially for someone like me that has tried his fair share of most game genres on the iPhone platform. Keep in mind that the iPhone has only one physical button on the front. The game designers give you a virtual control stick with which to move the hero and three action “buttons”: one to swing your weapon, another to shield and use special abilities, and one that appears under certain battle conditions. There’s also life and magic meters on the top part of the screen, along with a menu escape. This game interface surprisingly doesn’t interfere with the rest of the game on screen. The virtual controls worked very well, only being a problem when my thumbs weren’t aligned properly! One thing I should mention about this game: it’s very graphic-intensive; I would recommend installing MemoryInfo and using it to kill all non-essential iPhone memory processes before starting the game.

The goals of the game itself are very straightforward and on-screen game hints will let you know if you’re going wayward. There’s a couple of neat surprises to this seemingly mindless brawler. First, you can search for powerups for your health and magic meters. Most of these are obvoius to find, but some aren’t that easy. Second, there are some puzzle elements to later levels that, while being simple puzzles, still add some needed depth to the gameplay. You can also upgrade weapons that you acquire throughout, and the decisions to upgrade which abilities of each weapon can also make your warrior’s life easy or a living hell.

The game itself is engaging, with a storyline and cutscenes that immerse you into your character. I found myself eagerly looking forward to the next chapter, the next challenge, even the next bigger sub-boss. The designers put some thought into making the game challenging, but not extravagantly difficult for newbies like myself. I got killed a few times, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out what I was doing wrong and adapt.

All in all, I had to give this game a 4 out of 5… whatever symbol you care to think of. I can’t give it my highest rating because, while the entire storyline was bordering on epic grandeur… the ending was just pure anticlimactic crap! If it weren’t for how great the rest of the game is, I would have felt completely bilked instead of merely cheated of a good ending. Still, I would recommend this game to anyone who wants a good adventure. Sans the ending, I really enjoyed being the Hero of Sparta!

Maybe next video will be the V-Cube 6… or the Mirror Blocks… or maybe I’ll just jump to the V-Cube 7. Meh. You’ll find out soon enough!

Well, last October, I didn’t have to wonder any longer. Before vacation, I got the leaked version of Mirror Of Souls from a torrent site. That put some icing on my vacation, especially when, listening to it on the plane, my jaw dropped a few times. Most new pieces of music don’t elicit that kind of reaction from me. Yes, it’s that good!! Matt certainly learned a lot from the first album (kick ass as it was) and thoughtfully applied that knowledge to this one. I’m telling all dear readers, if you’re into some hard-hitting, yet progressive, epic-sounding fresh and exciting metal… then look no further. I’ve bought/downloaded albums and songs from many artists last year, and this is the one that most impressed me.

Before I break down the tracks, I’ll tell you why I waited so long to write this (besides the fact that I was lazy. Still am!). I wanted to buy the album and give the band full due; I even went so far as to buy the Japanese import for the bonus track. A consumer review is worthless if the product isn’t bought, ya know!

Tower Of Ashes – Much like the last album, this song starts Mirror Of Souls off with a small, majestic keyboard passage that transforms, first into acoustic guitar, and then into crunching riffs with bass and drums. Then they go into double-time with the main theme, breaking afterwards with a very original-sounding vocal opening and way-cool accompanying riff. You’ll have to hear it to understand. The rest of the song gives you a hint of the complexity you’ll find throughout the rest of the album. The ending is a bit cheesy with the instrument crescendo, though the song itself is an awesome start to the album!

On Eagle’s Wings – This is the first song the band featured on its MySpace page. Probably the one song that would be the most “listener-friendly”. Interesting use of a talk box in the beginning but, when I heard the early version of the song, I liked that one better without the talk box. Sounded cleaner. Nonetheless, this song has some soaring moments and, all throughout, the pace doesn’t let up one bit.

Lay The Demon To Rest – If you want a song with face-ripping crunch, then listen to this! This is the closest that Theocracy has come to a thrash metal song, complete with blast-beat drumming from Shawn Benson and a awesome beginning scream from Matt Smith. I don’t know how he held the opening note for so long! There’s a part of the song where the band does gang vocals to complement Matt’s distorted bridge vocals, and it sounds fantastic.

Bethlehem – After the fury of the last song, we’re brought to the one true ballad on the album. If you couldn’t figure out that this is a Christian Metal band by now, then this song should be a dead giveaway. That being said, this is a beautiful song/hymn, perfect for Christmas or after (or even during) church service. The sing-along chorus and majestic choir vocals (and lyrics!) are what make this song so special. The change in style from the last song proves how versatile the band is in their songwriting and instrumental talent.

Absolution Day – Back to full-on ramming speed. This is one of the songs that I can’t get enough of. There’s simply too many good musical moments in this track; some of them were the ones that made my jaw drop! Simply an Epic / Progressive Metal song worthy of the genres. I love the power of one line towards the end, “Absolution for all who believe!!”. The ending is cool too .

Writings In The Sand – I only give this four stars because it didn’t quite grab me like the rest of the song do. It does deserve an extra half-star for continuing the fine musical standards that the rest of the album holds. It has a nice groove to it; a very progressive rock feel to the whole song in general, rounding out the album.

Martyr – I had to resist putting the title in caps. That’s how much I love this song. From beginning to end, this track just… flat… out… ROCKS!! I can’t emphasize it any more than that! Even the spanish guitar interlude near the ending chorus rocks. The only thing that takes away from the awesome feel (IMHO) is the repeating sweep-pick line towards the end. Otherwise, pure awesome!

Mirror Of Souls – This song clocks in at over 22 minutes long, but don’t let this deter you from listening. Think of it as three songs, since there are three distinct parts to it. The whole song is a story about the main character’s search for the truth about his existence. That’s all I’ll say, as I don’t want to spoil it. I will say that the ending of the story made me cry. That’s how good it is. As for the music, there’s so much good songwriting packed into this tour-de-force that it makes my head spin thinking about it too much. Even though it’s a long track, the music constantly evolves and shifts and there’s so many good moments… again, as with many other songs on the album, this is one you’ll have to hear for yourself instead of taking my word for it. As I said, the ending made me cry, as it has a beautiful ending and perfect finish to an awesome album.

Wages Of Sin (Japan edition bonus track) – The shortest song, at three and a half minutes, but very cool. Even though the band was rushed to record this, the same high standards were applied, and you can hear it well. The “The payment is made!!” chant somehow doesn’t get boring or tiresome, the way it’s done here!

Throughout the track review, I didn’t say much about the singing. That’s because the lead singing, choruses, choir vocals and even the gang vocals are immaculate. I’m not exaggerating. Matt Smith is not only the driving force of the band, he’s also the singer and a perfectionist in the studio. His vocal style is clean, with just a hint of grit, but very powerful and controlled. Most of the vocals are done by him, and he does a fantastic job. Below is a video he made in the studio detailing the process behind his choir vocal tracking for the song “Martyr”. What you hear towards the end is a taste of how meticulously the entire album is made.

Matt, Shawn, Jon and the others who made Mirror Of Souls possible, my congratulations to you. This album is pure awesome, I’ll enjoy it for years to come (just like the first album) and I can’t wait to hear the next album. By the way, Shawn’s drumming is excellent throughout the album; I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets the “Best New Drummer” award in a few publications! To those reading this review, if you like metal… even if you’re not a Christian, you definitely should pick this one up. Don’t complain, just do it. Cheers!

Below, I’ll embed a clip I’ve snipped from Hulu.com. I was very surprised to see Sanctuary on there after it just airing last night. Due to the content provider’s whims, it may be on the site for a while, or maybe not for long at all… so if you like the clip, you can just point the mouse onto the embed’s progress bar and rewind it to view the show from the beginning (You can also head to Hulu.com and view the whole enchilada, with the option for fullscreen!). The first part of the pilot is, like I said, a good story but mainly expository. The second part has some good action and did a bit of further character development. Some of the cast are very intriguing: I loved Dr. Magnus, and Amanda Tapping did a great job with that character. The real pleasure was watching Christopher Heyerdahl play the main heavy, John Druitt. His character is just awesomely twisted abounding with maniacal intelligence. The only weakness is Dr. Will Zimmerman, but hopefully that character will be fleshed out more with the next episodes.

Well, this is the first time I’ve reviewed a TV show. Let me know how you, the reader, liked what I did here, and also if you liked my show recommendation! Cheers!

This time around, I’ll have to compare Ultra Beatdown to their previous albums, since they’ve obviously grown by increments, if not leaps and bounds. If you haven’t heard anything by this band, I’d suggest one of their few anthemic ballads to start, as their speed in any other songs can be quite overwhelming when not expected. If you want, you can read my other reviews of their albums, Sonic Firestorm and Inhuman Rampage, to get an idea of what they sound like. This band plays fast, and even that is an understatement sometimes. One may wonder if they’re not going to be content until they break the land-speed record with their instruments! However, it’s not just speed for speed’s sake; they infuse that speed with their own style, and almost every song has a anthemic, over-the-top and epic feel to them. Because of that, many of their songs can sound the same… but only if you’re listening with half an ear! When you really listen, you can hear a complexity in their compositions that most listeners would ignore.

As I’ve stated, with this new album, the band does some more musical exploration and experimentation. Some of the songs have more of a progressive element, and they use changing tempos even more than ever. However, while I have no problem with softer interludes to make things more interesting, their use of interludes in a few of the songs was quite jarring and left me scratching my head. Otherwise, they’re definitely flexing some serious musical muscle, even compared to the last album…

Heroes Of Our Time – Starting off with a bang, as per usual. A good, catchy beat makes up a song for their first single and video. I like the change-up at :29! Very good opening showcasing what we can expect on the album.

The Fire Still Burns – I love the epic way this starts; I caught myself playing the intro over and over again. The bridge before the chorus just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. The chorus is especially catchy. The interlude at 4:27 is good, but it almost threatens to derail the feel of the song because of how long it goes on. Thankfully, the band picks up the pace before it becomes unrecoverable. After the solo, there’s that cool “who-oh-ah-oh!” chant that the band is most famous for in quite a few of their songs. Only they can pull it off that well… and get away with doing it multiple times!

Reasons To Live – Here’s where the band shines! The beginning started off weird, but the band gets it back together early on. Right when the “Hold me, save me!” pre-chorus kicks is, they had me chanting along. The kickdown to half speed at 2:50 was rather jarring, but I can understand why they did it. There’s a brilliant part from 3:36 to 5:06 that they wanted to transition to, but did they have to suddenly drop the tempo to get to that point? The little touches that make many of their songs so special are evident, with an example being the wolf-whistling guitar at 5:06!

Heartbreak Armageddon – This is a track that I found myself playing the most so far. The chorus is just too catchy not to sing along! Dragonforce packs so much power in this song that I seriously believe they could light up a city the size of Chicago with this song. However, the interlude at 3:50 does the same thing as the one in The Fire Still Burns; it derails the overall feeling of the song and it takes a severe jolt from the band to get back up to speed. The rest of the song is just as brilliant as the beginning, and the ending made me forget about any previous musical transgressions!

The Last Journey Home – And now for something somewhat different! Dragonforce proves they can do… not just fast… not just slow… but an actual mid-tempo song! This is actually an enjoyable effort from them. Listening to it, for some reason, made me think of all the cool anime movies and shows I’ve ever seen. It just has that kind of feel to it. Of all the songs so far, this one has them flexing the most new musical muscles. (I’m not making a deal of the interlude in this song because it fits very well.)

A Flame For Freedom – And now we have the “typical” anthemic power ballad that Dragonforce has done something similar to on every album. Yes, nice break from the rest of the album. Yes, it’s beautiful sounding and makes you wanna hug your neighbor and hold a lighter in the air for all the fallen heroes. Nothing wrong with that. However… move along now, nothing interesting to see here.

Inside The Winter Storm – Back up to their usual speed now, this song just sounds so urgent and so much fire is poured into it and then, at 2:36… POW! What the heck happened?! This is the musical equivalent of, as Douglas Adams put it, “going from fourth gear to first, thus making your engine leap out of the hood in a rather ugly mess.” They pull out of it at around 3:16 and proceed to make the rest of the 8:12 song enjoyable. This is the one song, though, that a interlude like that just didn’t need to be there.

The Warrior Inside – An excellent song overall, with all the power, complexity, speed and conviction that only Dragonforce can throw together in their own patented formula. The piano at 3:46 is a nice touch and really doesn’t take away from the song, especially whey they can hold my interest with everything else going on. It wasn’t as abrupt as the interludes in the other songs I perhaps complained about. The chorus is especially catchy! They slow it down abruptly at 5:55, but this offers a nice closing to the song.

Bonus song – Strike Of The Ninja – Here, they do a bit of experimentation with their overall sound and song tempo/feel. The result is very enjoyable in this, compared to the rest of their songs, very short song!

Bonus song – Scars Of Yesterday – Here’s some more experimentation for us. They do some different things in this track, most notably an interlude that has a kind of new age-ish southwestern feel to it, along with a healthy dose of video game influence to keep the gamers in the audience happy.

All in all, I think this is still a great album to own. Not as awesome as Inhuman Rampage, but it still rates as an enjoyable listen for most metalheads with a thirst for power, speed, melody and style. I have this album and their two last albums in a playlist on my iPod, and it mixes so well with their other songs. I sometimes need a good Dragonforce marathon!

Cheers!

It really is… just a phone. That is, of course, its main function. Of that, I won’t kid myself. However, I’ve been exposed to the vaunted Blackberry phones and, knowing full well their capabilities, I have to say that my new phone really is a Blackberry on major steroids! In fact, I’m writing this entry on the phone itself using the Wordpress iPhone app. It’s true what others have said about typing on it; you have to get used to the on-screen touch keyboard and the auto correction feature. Once you get past that, typing on it is awesome!

In fact, it’s the apps for the phone that make the iPhone so special and a pleasure to use. It comes with the standard smartphone apps such as mail, contacts, calendar, notepad, camera with photo app, calculator, world clock and maps (yes, it has GPS, too!). From there, though, you can also add apps from Apple’s App Store, most of which are free! I now have enough productivity apps (and productivity-killing!) apps to let me do whatever I want when I’m not near a computer.

The sheer usability of this phone is amazing. Trying to do the same things with my old phone was either a headache (or impossible) compared to the iPhone. Typing out this much so far has taken 30 minutes, and that was with a few interruptions! The Mobile Safari browser looks and acts like a real desktop browser. I’ve tried the “push” email feature and it does work (my Cox email), but I put it back to hourly checks to conserve power.

All in all, that is the only disappointment about the iPhone, which is battery life. You simply have to be conservative about how you use the features. However, I estimated that, from full charge to 10% juice, I did about four hours of mixed 3G and Wi-fi internet browsing, and I still had power to play music! (Yes, the iPhone hasn’t forgotten its iPod roots!)

So, yes, I’m very happy with the iPhone. I will endeavor to post screen shots of some of the features, with explanations. My new phone, part two?

I’ll have to post this entry now to final draft and finesse it before publishing. Cheers!