Viewing blogs posted in March, 2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

Jonathan Roy assaults Bobby Nadeau

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 31/03/2008 20:46:58
Updated by Joel Dixon at 01/04/2008 15:03:03

About a week ago the Quebec Remparts were losing by 6 goals in game 2 of their playoff series against the Chicoutimi Sagueneens in the Quebec Major Junior League when a fight broke out. The fight turned into a bit of a brawl with most of the players on the ice getting involved and the following happened:

Jonathan Roy assaults Bobby Nadeau

The goalie in red is Jonathan Roy, backup netminder for the Remparts with a very ordinary 3-10 record in 22 games this season. The only reason this incident made national news is Jonathan is the son of Patrick Roy, retired Hall of Fame goaltender for the Montreal Canadians and Colorado Avalanche. Patrick is also well known for his short temper on the ice and being arrested on a domestic violence charge after an argument with his wife (I bet Jonathan is bummed that his Dad passed on his temper and not his hockey ability).

What Roy did had nothing to do with the fight of the hockey game - he just outright physically assaulted the goalie in blue, Bobby Nadeau (who is the starting goalie for the Sagueneens and who's team will actually suffer if he was suspended). It's clear that Nadeau wasn't interested in fighting, and Roy didn't let up when Nadeau was dropped to the ice. The footage says everything.

Obviously this isn't great publicity for the sport of hockey but the worst part of this story is the "punishment" that was dished out to Jonathan and Patrick Roy. While it's good that Patrick was suspended (albeit for only 5 games), Jonathan's suspension of 7 games is nothing more than a slap on the wrists. What a joke.

I can only hope that the police get involved and give the second-rate backup goalie a punishment that fits.

# Posted in the Hockey section

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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Overheard on a train

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 23/03/2008 16:15:53
Updated by Joel Dixon at 26/03/2008 19:47:37 - spelling

A little while ago on a train home from work I was sitting near two people that looked to be around 19 or 20 having a seemingly normal conversation. My ears pricked up a little when I heard the following:

Quote:
Curious Girl: Do you think nuns masturbate?

Uncomfortable Boy: Um ... [long pause] I'm sure they probably do.

CG: Is it some kind of sin?

UB: Probably. But then again so is pedophilia.

Quite the odd conversation, but it's apparently something that some people are wondering about.

And it seems the "myth of the pedophile priest" thing is still going strong.

# Posted in the General section

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Ninety-Nine Nights

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 23/03/2008 01:33:33
Updated by Joel Dixon at 17/09/2008 09:29:37

When I bought the Xbox from a workmate he included his 4 remaining games. I had already completed three of those games (Kameo, Oblivion and Enchanted Arms) after my first few weeks in Edmonton around 8 months ago. The fourth game, Ninety-Nine Nights - took considerably longer.

Ninety-Nine Nights cover

A joint effort between Q Entertainment and Phantagram, Ninety-Nine Nights (shortened to N3) is a hack-and-slash game with up to a few thousand enemies to vanquish in each level. You start the game as Inphyy, a 17-year-old leader of the Temple Knights fighting a holy war against a horde of goblins and other supposedly evil groups. Once you finish the main storyline with Inphyy you unlock two new characters and replay the same story with a different viewpoint. Each character you unlock tells a different part of the story and lets you play on both sides of dark and light, which changes the events of the story.

The game play has elements of RPGs such as level progression based on experience points and a number of weapons with status changing upgrades. The story also reminds me of RPGs like Final Fantasy - complete with world-saving teenagers, a predominant light-versus-dark theme and female characters that believe boobies are more effective against a sword than armour.

All protected from stabbings. Unless, of course, someone goes for the chest

Visually N3 is very impressive, and this was obviously an important goal of the development team. Hundreds of enemies and allies are onscreen at once set against purty backdrops of the desert, jungles or a snow field. Each enemy is given a different look with a random combination of various armor pieces, and act relatively believably when left on their own. Unfortunately it seems they pushed the poor Xbox too hard as the framerate is noticeably slowed when a large number of enemies are joined by the destruction of structures such as a sentry tower. While this doesn't affect the game play too often it does make the game look a little unpolished.

Bring it!

N3 is essentially a button masher with one button controlling a regular attack and the other a power attack. These buttons are combined to inflict powerful combo attacks, and you learn better attacks as you progress in level.

For each enemy you kill you are awarded a red orb. When you collect enough you can unleash an orb attack allowing you to cut through hundreds of enemies like partially set jelly. Enemies killed during an orb attack result in a blue orb. When you collect enough of the blue orbs an orb spark attack pretty much levels the playing field of foes.

The achievements in N3 are quite well implemented for such an early title. Awarding an achievement for completing the game with each character encourages you to uncover the complete story in the game. If I was playing this game on a system without achievement points I probably would have stopped playing after finishing Inphyy's quests and would have missed a lot of the story elements. The final achievement, progress each character to level nine, gets repetitive to the point of tedium - which explains why this game took so much longer to complete.

Ninety-Nine Nights isn't the most strategic game, but when you come home from work there's a certain level of fun to be had mowing through thousands of animated goblins.

3 out of 5

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360

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