Game Preview - new Rayman Raving Rabbids

The new Rayman Raving Rabbids game fo rthe Wii looks just as wacky as usual - woohoo!
Every Rayman game is a solid buy! The previous one was more for groups, not as good in single player mode, but still a solid buy... and for groups, really good!

Game Preview - Animal Crossing, City for the Wii

Watching E3 2008 again with Mike. Animal Crossing, City left us quite, quite bored.
So you can roam around the town. You can buy stuff, send mail, cut trees, dig up bunny eggs.... yawn.

But Reggie Fils-Amie (Nintendo America head) looks pretty pissed off, so perhaps we should buy this game.

XBox 360 price cut

Good for everyone, and in time for E3 - Microsoft on Sunday cut the price of the Xbox 360 Pro model game console with a 20 gigabyte hard drive to $299 from $349.

They also introduced a new Xbox 360 model with a 60 gigabyte hard drive, which will go on sale in stores in the U.S. and Canada for $349 in early August.

Buy it, folks, and buy ($10 cheaper now!) Gears of War!

Game Preview - Resident Evil 5

Saw Resident Evil 5 played live at E3 - whoohoo!  Finally on XBox!!! 

The game looks sweeter than before, although maybe a little less freaky. And they showed one of the tougher enemies - a chainsaw-wielding, burlap-sack on the head zombie!!

A solid buy rating, dear bankers.

Here's the extended trailer - set all flights to Africa!

Gave Preview - Gears of War 2 (contd.)

Just saw a live demo on E3.... OMFG OMFG OMFG!!!!!!!!

November 7th, I can't wait!

Meat-shields, oh my!

Faster pacing, goodness gracious!

Better and more detailed graphics... wha..? how...?

Newer weapons, smarter and new enemies, ooh yeah!  (Like the priests, with their new ink grenades, the tickers - explosive little buggers, drones with grappling hooks - you can shoot the hooks off walls so the drones plunge to their splattery deaths... and on and on!)

Newer, gorier kill-moves - flip me over and curb stomp me, why don't you??

The brumaks! Damn!

November 7th, I really can't wait!!!!!

In the meantime, here's an older video, revealed by Mr. Mousse, Cliffy B.  Around the 2 minute mark, you can see an example of using a meat-shield.  And of course, the Brumak is there, and the locust have chainsaws too.  Woohoo!

Game Preview - Fallout 3

I've been waiting for Fallout 3 for quite a while. They're demoing it live on E3 right now, and I have to say..... groan!

The world looks big. But it doesn't compare to Gears of War's 'destroyed beauty'.

 
The music and feel seem ripped from BioShock (ok, that isn't a bad thing).

 
The much-vaunted V.A.T.S, or Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System is disappointing. It was supposed to show us a new level of blood, gore, and humorous take-downs, but I just didn't get interested.

Ah well, c'est la vie...

So here are a few more screen-shots.

        

Swimming Saturday

Only 1.5 km (30 laps).
I swam without swim goggles - had to throw away contacts after a while, and my eyes were red for a long time after. Probably took the same time I would have for a 2 km swim.

Chocolatier Review - Rohr, Geneva

I had occasion to taste some chocolates by Rohr in Geneva; These are sold at three main locations, of which I went to Place Du Molard. 

I had only one piece of each type of chocolate, and they are smaller than individual chocolates one gets in the US (roughly half the size of Godiva chocolate pieces found all over the US); I ate them roughly 28 hours after they had been manufactured. With these two points, I'm hoping I got the right taste of each chocolate.

1. Marzipan - taste was ok.  The after-taste was quite good, for over a minute.  But I would probably prefer packages Marzipan chocolates.
2. Milk truffle with Bailey's infusion - Very good!
3. Dark truffle - Good.  Might have preferred shell to be less crunchy, as it masked some of the chocolate taste.
4. Extra dark (70%) truffle - Very good! Felt like 60% - 65% cocoa
5. Cappuccino - Very good!  Wish the taste lingered longer after finishing.

Frankfurt Airport - Sweeter wines available

Traveling to and from Geneva in July 2008, I saw the following sweet wines available in the duty-free shops.

Krebs Grove
Auslese Trocken Riesling

Krebs Grove
2006
Huxelrebe Beerenauslese
16.90 Euros
0.5 Litres

Krebs Grove
2007
Riesling Eiswein
26 Euros
0.375 Litres

Schloss Vollrads
2002
Riesling Eiswein
95 Euros
0.375 Litres

Blue Nun
Riesling
25 Euros
0.375 Litres

Krug scher Hof
2005
Eiswein
22.50 Euros

Krug scher Hof
1999
Trockenbeeren Auslese
27 Euros
0.375 Litres

Anselmann
2005
Ortega Trockenbeerenauslese
20.50 Euros
0.375 Litres

Anselmann
2007
Riesling Spatlese Halbtrocken
7.50 Euros
0.75 Litres

Barons de Rotschild collection
2006
Bordeaux
8.80 Euros
0.75 Litres

Travel Review - Geneva

I spent a couple of days in Geneva in July, 2008.  Mainly used the city as a base, starting and ending there;  in between, we traversed a fair bit of Western and Southern Switzerland, and Italy... but more on that later.

Geneva is at once pretty, and dirty (for a Swiss city), touristy (in a nice way) as well as just another big city.  Taking the train from the Geneva airport to get to the city shows some grime.  A far better way is to drive in; all at once you will experience the lake, the fountain, the wonderfully and warmly lighted up city, and the marquee names (Rolex, Tissot, Brietling - all have horribly big signs overlooking the lake and road coming in from the east).

Geneva's Fountain is quite cool - it is a single high plume, lighted from below so that the water is well lit up.  During the 2008 Euros in June, the fountain had a football at the top.  Of course if you've been to Vegas, you were probably spoiled by the fountains at the Bellagio.  Don't compare - this one is quite nice on its own.  And it even has a story, instead of just being a brain-child of some uber city-planning cabal.  The story I heard told of a fire hydrant being knocked over; the resulting fountain attracted a lot of people, and voila!

The park near the fountain, next to the lake is really nice.  In summer, it always seemed full of people relaxing and enjoying, some jugging and exercising, others dancing (semi-organized dances are held often in the park).  The ice cream you get at the park is really really good, per Carina - wish I had gotten to taste it!

The Old Town is ok.  The food is quite expensive, and in the ok to good range.  A little bit to see there by walking around, but I didn't get the same feel of the old town as I did with other Swiss or European towns.