The Weekly Checkpoint #6

Mr. Nash and I talk about a lot of things in the most recent Weekly Checkpoint (#6), including Walking Dead, Rock Band iOS, Sony All-Stars, Serious Sam 3 and so much more!

Comments, feedback, follows, etc. are always appreciated:

The PAST!

The idea of Time Travel has always intrigued me. Time Machine, Quantum Leap, Back to the Future, LOST, 12 Monkeys, Garygoyles... basically, anything that plays around with Time, where someone attempts to move backwards or leap forward to alter history somehow, always intrigues me. The concept is usually what hooks me.

Time Travel in any usable capacity will probably never happen. And honestly, we're all time travellers -- all moving forward. But not backward.

If I fell asleep tonight and woke up in 1986, would I track down my past self -- 9 years old at that point -- and attempt to impart some wisdom? How would my past self react? What if tomorrow I bumped into my future self on the street and he started babbling about the Future? Would I write him off as insane? Fortunately, I'll never really have to answer that question but I'd probably at least hear him out, provided he could convince me that he was, in fact, from the future and was actually my future self.

That part's easy. All I need to do it think of a phrase now and earmark it for use if I ever run into my past self. The me in the future will also have knowledge of that phrase and be able to convince the current me on the spot that he's a future version of me. If that makes sense.

The only time travel we have access to is our memory and documentation, like photos and diary entries. I can flip open an old piece of writing or flip through old photos and be "in that moment." Pictures are really good for that, at least for me.

I don't even have to be in the picture; I could have been the one to take the photo. But somehow the picture manages to capture emotion and my own back story. It also captures details that I otherwise would have completely forgotten. Like the colour of objects, who was there, the relationship between the people in the photo (at that moment), and what was happening in the background, either historically or in the actual background.

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to wallow in the Past like a pig in filth. I like to remember "How things were" rather than thinking about "What things will come." And it's to my detriment -- and by extension, my family's -- that I do this. I'm really making an effort to not wrap myself in layers of nostalgia but it can be pretty damn tough.

That's probably what wisdom I'd try to impart on my 9-year old self: Live in the now, prepare for the future, and think fondly on the past but don't wallow in it.

"When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Hitler"

Another proper update from The Armchair Empire, which stars a cavalcade of Playstation 3 titles:

• Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
• Prototype 2 (PS3)
• SSX (PS3)
• Defenders of Ardania (PC)
• Hard Reset: Extended Edition (PC)
• Prototype 2 (360)

And as a result of a trip to the Seattle area, Axel has an extensive hands-on Preview of:

• Guild Wars 2 (PC)

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Walking Dead Screens *Possible Spoilers*

Everything You Need to Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

You shoot things, offline and online. It launches November 13, 2012.

You're good to go.

From The Air

Perspective is everything.

In the case of these two pictures, it's all about being thousands of feet above the ground from the vantage point of a helicopter. These pictures were taken by Leah Holiove -- @Leah_Holiove on Twitter -- who regularly takes picture from the air in the course of her day job and these two are from her latest round of photos.

One shows the construction of the new Port Mann Bridge. (It's easy to spot because there's still a gap.) I've driven over the current bridge thousands of times and I've never given any thought to anything other than what drivers are doing around me. I've never considered how spectacular it might all look from a different perspective.

The other picture (above) looks westward to Vancouver. (The helicopter was probably close to the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge.) There's something really awesome seeing this from the air like this. Google Maps/Earth is great -- with Street View and satellite pics -- but there's something missing from those resources. Maybe it's a "texture" or maybe it's just the angle of the picture. Maybe it's the sun shining on the city and the rain brushing up against the slope of land in the distance. Or maybe it's the way the picture is framed. I can't quite put my finger on it.

What I do know is that the pictures put me in a different frame of mind.

It's really easy to fold in on oneself and focus on the issues that sit in our line of sight and nothing else. There's a lot more out there to consider. People we haven't met, friends we haven't made, stories we haven't heard, and places we've never been. Given a little perspective, a view from the sky, makes me better appreciate what this part of the world has to offer and just how good we have it here.

Radical Wants Me to Fund Their Next Title

Last night I was fooling around in Prototype 2 with the RADnet content and when I selected a "free" download option I was presented with this screen:

Wait. How many MS Points do they want? I had to write it down and count the digits.

4,294,967,295. Or about 4.3 billion MS Points.

I did some quick math to figure out the actual cost because who knows, the next piece of RADnet content may be worth it.

A single MS Point works out to be about $0.02 (CAN). More math. The total cost to grab that content is $66,571,993.00. So either that content will tear a hole in the space-time continuum because it's so awesome or Radical Entertainment wants me to personally fund their next project, which is so not happening!

Or that's just the method being used to make sure the content isn't available until a certain date. Or it's a technical glitch.

I like my first guess.

EDIT: 8:01PM, May 1, 2012 - Clarification from Radical and Activision (thanks, Steve!):  "Given that the DLC isn’t available for purchase yet but it is still listed when you use a VIP code, 66 billion is the default amount it tries to charge you to make sure no one can buy it." Basically, as part of the press, I'm special! To further clarify: "Regular gamers with the Radnet edition will not see this at all. Only you and a chosen few who were lucky enough to get VIP codes."