I've been playing through the PS3 game inFAMOUS lately, and for the most part, I've had a lot of fun. Blowing away baddies no matter which alignment you pick is a blast. There are, however, a few things that I hope SuckerPunch is considering when making the sequel.
#1 - Sticking to surfaces. For the most part, the developers did a good job of "if you ever thought to yourself 'I can climb that,' then you can climb it." But, a problem I've noticed is just moving from surface to surface, especially when the surfaces aren't quite on the same plane. Meaning, two surfaces are next to each other, connected, etc. and you think you can just run along, but you bump into the invisible wall that keeps you on the initial surface. Now, I don't dislike the invisible wall entirely, since it keeps me from falling to my death in some cases, but I hope SP does a better job in the next game of making me able to run onto near surfaces.
#2 - Glitches! There are two missions in particular that I experienced tonight that outright pissed me off. One was disabling the surveillance devices off a building. Not only is it a pain to find all 12 in some of the missions, but one placed the device between four windows, with none of them being close enough to just perch on and blast it. Instead, I had to jump around for about twenty minutes until I hung in the air long enough to be able to get it.
The second one was a mission that involve hunting down three baddies in a maze. Found the first two without much trouble, but I cannot for the life of me find the third. I tried going through the whole maze on the ground, on top of the shipping containers, randomly firing electro-blasts throughout the area to see if that would trigger a response, and nothing. I looked up the side-mission in question and discovered that this wasn't an uncommon occurence. One said to look around towards the beginning of the area to see if it had partially spawned inside a wall. Really? The thing can spawn in the wall? Awesome.
Other than that, most of the game has been fun. There's a lot of repetition, but because of the parkour and the way the city is laid out, it doesn't usually feel monotonous.
Onto the second item. I bought a 2010 Hyundai Elantra at the end of December 2009 (to take advantage of a tax break, and my previous vehicle was falling apart). I did a shit ton of research and test-drove a number of vehicles (mostly Toyotas) and finally decided to go with the '10 Hyundai Elantra SE. The exterior looked leagues beyond the '06 (or '07) model my brother has and the SE had a number of features at an attractive price that I was looking for (namely an MP3/iPod input jack), so I decided to go take a look and maybe test drive one. After I, and Kelly, drove it, we admitted it was the one, despite swearing off Elantras (including my new one, my family has owned 6, including the one that I was driving when I got into a near-fatal wreck in '03).
Aside from a few minor issues (the radio stations occasionally reset to the defaults and their was a 'breaking-in' period for the handling), the car has been a beast. I drove it through a monsoon averaging 65 mph without it hydroplaning or going anywhere but where I wanted it to go. Now, I live in Wisconsin. As such, I am subject to a variety of adverse weather. The last month it's been heavy thunderstorms and tornados.
After my day with Kelly (we ate at Famous Daves and saw Despicable Me (very adorable movie)), I drove her home and hit a couple of potholes and went through some puddles. I then noticed that a light had come on on the dashboard marked "ESC Off." I couldn't figure out how to get it to go off, so I looked it up right when I got home. I found out that this is for the Electronic Stabilization Control (still not entirely sure what it means or does, though I have a few solid guesses), and that hitting a pothole can screw up some sensor for it and cause the light to come on. This also can lead to a lack of acceleration and steering (since, from what I found, ESC kinda "takes over steering" when encountering bad road conditions), so that's bad.
So now I have to either take the vehicle in during a day off (I only have one during the week when the dealership would be open, and it requires an appointment...) or just live the light popping on every so often. Hopefully, the warranty covers this kind of stuff.
Also, I got curious as to what the redesign for the next model was going to look like. I found one shot of the interior (sexy as hell) and a number of the exterior. I applaud Hyundai for really focusing on styling lately, but dammit, I hate you for making me want it.
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