South Park: The Stick of Truth - A Nerd Sophisticate Review

Here's what you've been waiting for, my review of South Park: The Stick of Truth.

TL;DW - Go buy it now

Splinter Cell: Blacklist PC Review

I'm going to be very forthcoming with this one: Personally, Splinter Cell has always taken a backseat to Metal Gear Solid. I've never been extremely fond of the series and the last Splinter Cell game played was Double Agent, which came out in 2006. That being said, I needed to fill the gaping stealth action hole that MGS has left in my gaming life and decided to give Blacklist I spin. I was pleasantly surprised.

I picked up Splinter Cell Blacklist on the UbiStore and downloaded it through the UPlay client. I won't get into detail right now about my feelings regarding UPlay, but basically it feels like a low rent version of Origin. I would've preferred this game as a Steamworks title, but Ubisoft is persistent about making us use UPlay to play its games.

Straight out of the gates, I realized this wasn't the same Sam Fisher that I controlled back in 2006. This Sam Fisher is a brutal killing machine, only being held back by my own qualms about killing every hostile NPC in site. The gameplay has changed dramatically, allowing you to choose your own playstyle and rewarding you as such. Want to sneak around and choke the crap out of every enemy soldier? You can do that. Want to climb over them and just reach the objective without alerting anyone? You can do that. You want to turn this game into Splinter Cell/Gears of War? You can definitely do that too. The cover shooter mechanics that have been woven into Blacklist have really changed the formula for me in a good way. Now when I alert enemies, I don't always have to go running to the next dark corner or ceiling pipe. I can hunker down and blast away with an automatic shotgun or non-suppressed MP5. The game rewards different playstyles with points that are converted into currency. The currency allows you to purchase weapons, suit upgrades, gadgets, and other items that you can tailor to your playstyle. It actually feels quite Hitman-esque, with certain upgrades and playstyles reminding me of a watered down version of Hitman Blood Money, which is actually a good thing.

The graphics on the PC version are great. Blacklist employs the Unreal engine, which when done without the giant hulking soldier bodies actually looks quite realistic. The engine rendered cutscenes are also quite a nice, with the closeups of the characters revealing an insane amount of detail. Stuble has never looked this nice.

The story is a pretty decent Tom Clancy yarn. I enjoyed it quite a bit and it ties into the previous installments quite nicely (from what I remember). There are also fun side missions that range from stealth infiltration to a horde mode type of wave survival, which I actually found to be quite fun.

If you have a stealth action itch that you need to scratch, you should definitely give Splinter Cell Blacklist I try. Oh and I haven't figured out how to do the wall splits maneuver yet, maybe they took it out of the game.

Cedar Point: The Nerd Review Part 1: The Rides

This past weekend we took a trip to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. For the uninitiated, Cedar Point is the largest amusement park in the midwest.

It is pretty damn big.

As a nerd and avid fan of rollercoaster tech and amusement parks I will not try to hide the fact that I was absolutely thrilled to be going to the rollercoaster capital of America. I will also say that I was not disappointed.

The Review

The Rides

Currently Cedar Point has 16 rollercoasters. I have tried all of them in my lifetime and during this last trip I rode 8 of them (all level 5 "thrill rating"). In my opinion, the "must-ride" coasters would be the Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, and the Magnum XL-200.

 Millennium Force

• The Millennium Force was the tallest coaster in the world when it first debuted, and it still has the ability to scare the living crap out of me today, over a decade after I first rode it. You're hurled up the first hill quite quickly on a very quick lift. I thought it would ruin the anticipation I usually get when I'm slowly climbing a roller coaster hill but it actually added to my anticipation. The first drop falls at an 80 degree angle at 90mph, which is one of the best drops in the entire park. In my opinion, it is the best steel coaster I have ever been on. 10/10 must ride. 
• The Top Thrill Dragster is one of the scariest things I have ever rode, hands down. Being accelerated to 120mph in under 4 seconds is one of the craziest feelings I've ever experienced. It felt like I was making a warp jump on the Enterprise. The sheer force from acceleration almost made me poop a little bit of funnel cake. Just don't put your hands up because you might get hurt when it shoots you forward (and also because the ride won't take off if your hands are up). 
• The Magnum XL-200 is one of the original gangster roller coasters at Cedar Point. For a 24 year old coaster, it still manages to amaze and scare me to this day. It was the first "hypercoaster" ever built, and has held up very well through the passage of time. The carts are kind of old and their aesthetics are a bit dated, but if you like nostalgia and dig the 80's vibe, you will definitely enjoy their looks.

The rides at Cedar Point are second to none. It puts every Six Flags I have ever been to shame. The amount of rides and the sheer scale of the park would definitely warrant a 2 day trip to the park. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore, but 13 year old gerbil definitely wished he was able to go for another day. The placement of the rides facilitated the experience, as one could just walk along a set path and ride every single coaster in the park. It flowed very nicely and didn't confuse me as other parks often did. They did have a lot of those spinny rides that I hate. Spinning is the bane of my amusement park existence because I get motion sickness from spinning really easily. That said, Cedar Point has some really awesome spinning rides that I would never ever ride. The "Raptor" made me super dizzy but that's my fault for riding a ride with a lot of crazy spirals and loops first. Whoops.
I also got the chance to ride their newest coaster "Gatekeeper" which is currently the longest and fastest "winged coaster" in the world.

Nice and thick.

Gatekeeper was pretty interesting and quite fun and it didn't give me the same motion sick feeling that other steel coasters with plenty of spirals and loops did. It felt more like flying or gliding rather than being hurled through loops and spirals at break neck speeds a la Raptor. 

Rides TL;DR 

If you want to go to the amusement parks with the best rides, you have to go to Cedar Point. 10/10 must ride.

Hitman + Tomb Raider + Sleeping Dogs on PC for $14 via amazon

On sale right now is "Tomb of the Sleeping Hitman" pack (I swear I did not make this up) on Amazon. You can pick up all 3 games for $14.
I have played all 3 and I will say that they are all solid titles.

• Tomb Raider is a departure from the previous games' styles, but one of my favorite games of the past year. 
• Hitman Absolution was decent but I did not find it as interesting as Hitman Blood Money. It's still worth a play through though if you're a Hitman fan.
• Sleeping dogs was one of the surprises of last year for me. I didn't expect it to be that enjoyable, but I actually had a great time with it and I highly recommend it to my PC master race friends who have to wait for GTA V to come on on PC in the next decade.

Go pick this pack up on Amazon now.

Cookie Clicker: Like blue meth in cookie form

I just spent a whole morning with "Cookie Clicker", this crazy little browser game about making cookies.
I can't stop thinking about cookies now. How will I generate more? Who can I exploit to get more cookies? Should I exploit my grandmother some more? How about some cookie farmers? Can I exploit them some more to get cookies?

If you want to go down a cookie filled rabbithole of entertaining despair, I suggest you go to Cooke Clicker right now and give it a shot.

For the record, I'm almost at 2 millions cookies a second.
Take that, grandma.