Friday Review April 11th

This being my first Friday review I will break the review into three sections, website, game and film.

Website:
I'm going to start with a relatively recent phenomenon, the social networking site Facebook. Firstly the most striking thing about Facebook is how it compares with its rival social networking websites such as Myspace. Most of these website allow the user to change the backgrounds, colours and everything else making it very personal, because that's what that type of social networking is about, where as Facebook is all blue and white, although the user can rearrange display boxes and add applications. What I'm trying to say is it is the actual technical features that has made the website so popular. For the average website user, they can easily share photos with friends by tagging them (a feature that other sites like Myspace are starting to incorporate) but more importantly, companies that advertise with Facebook can pinpoint their target demographic, for example if Microsoft wanted to send out an ad about an x-box 360 they could choose to send it exclusively to their target audience, perhaps males aged 16-35 with gaming in their interests list. I think is a fine example of function over form, very often websites are so concerned with presentation its often hard to find what your looking for quickly and effectively.

Game:
I recently purchased Sega's "Condemned 2: Bloodshot" a first person survival horror for the X-Box 360. It's been a very long time since I've purchased a Sega game because almost everything after the Genesis (Mega Drive) fell horribly short, but this game looked different and it got above 80 on Metacritic so I thought perhaps It's time I gave Sega a chance to prove their worth. Fortunately I was right to give them another chance or should I say give Monolith Productions a chance, as I found Sega is only the publisher,. Either way this is one of the scariest games I've played since Resident Evil (GC Edition). Condemned's USP is its combat system, a first person game that uses mostly melee attacks, that revolves around chains of combos and parries. After playing Oblivion (that has similar combat) I wasn't expecting much, but Monolith really surprised me and put together a System that really works. Graphically the game is quite stunning with excellent character models and immersing environmental effects, that are so important in the survival horror genre.



Although sometimes the lighting and fog effects are so extreme you find yourself unable to see beyond your fists, it often produces a appropriately eerie atmosphere. There is the occasional glitch like guys running straight through pieces of furniture but thats to be expected. Possibly the most terrifying feature of the game though is the sound, a overbearingly creepy soundtrack is embellished by the sounds of shrieking psychopaths and brutal cracks as steel pipes collide with human bone, not something to be played on your own in the dark to be sure.

Film:
Coming Soon