From inside the castle
This one picks up right where the previous movie left off, with space-time just having been ripped a new one. I won't say any much more about the plot details than that, but this is definitely a must see. While I didn't enjoy this film as much as the first one, that is mostly due to how much I loved the first movie. This film is much more epic in scope however, dealing with universe-on-universe action (in several ways), and has some great cameos with past one-off characters (Grand Midwife, Pazuzu, Robot 1X). It comes out tomorrow, go buy it!
I can still hear the sounds of the hammers banging on the wood, then the collective cheering of the townsfolk after finishing a building. Or that glistening gong sound that plays when you find the Fountain of Youth. I loved this game way more than any other of the Civ games, probably because it seemed to have much more structure to it; colonizing the New World, building a Continental Congress, throwing your own "Boston Tea Party", and ultimately fighting the Revolutionary War. I definitely prefered that over the vague Space Race or seemingly never-ending triple-front war of the Civ games. I haven't touched Civ since the fourth game came out three years ago, but I'm definitely ready to dive back into this one.
I had a very strange conversation with the Xbox Support rep yesterday when I called to have my Xbox 360 sent for repair. His name was "Edward", and he clearly had some sort of accent, but his English was still very good. It was also clear he was reading directly off a template, but I didn't really mind that. The conversation went something like this.
[State your is your basic personal and Xbox information][My name is Stanley Lin, Xbox serial # something something]
"And how are you doing today sir?"
"Um, I'm fine."
[Tells me official Xbox repair info]
"And how are you doing today sir?"
"Um, good."
[Tells me more official Xbox repair info]
"And may I ask you a question sir?"
"Yes..."
"Your last name is Lin, correct?"
"Yes."
"And you are Chinese?"
"That's right"
"Oh, because you do not sound like Chinese, you sound American."
"Well I was born in America, my parents are Chinese though."
"Oh I see, but you go to China?"
"Um...well my parents were born in Taiwan, and I was born here in America."
"Oh, so you go to Taiwan?"
"I have visited there several times, yes."
"Oh, good for you!"
[Then he goes back into normal customer service mode, and we finish all the details on the Xbox]
All in all the guy was very clear and helpful, but it was just very strange.
