That reminded me how happy I am that I don’t own a Gaming PC anymore. It was just a waste of money and time and on top of that frequently very frustrating: the noise, driver problems, hardware incompatibilities, and so on and so forth.

The quality of the graphics produced by the PlayStation 3 might not be state of the art anymore. But they look good enough for me. And I can actually focus on playing games instead of faffing around with the system.

So the pivotal question is whether Super Mario Galaxy 2 is as good or even better than the first part:

1. If you have played Super Mario Galaxy in the past the intro and the first two levels will look very familiar.
2. The space ship which serves as the base of operations is a bit dull compared to Rosalina‘s observatory in the first game. And the Luma in charge of this space ship is somewhat annoying.
3. Fortunately things get better from here. In the second Galaxy your character Mario encounter’s Yoshi, a tame dinosaur, which he can ride on. Riding on Yoshi provides the player with a lot of new abilities. Yoshi can jump higher, eat enemies or swallow projectiles and fire them back at your opponents. By eating different kind of berries or hot chillies Yoshi gets even more astonishing powers like floating or super speed.
4. Mario himself can also acquire new powers e.g. by eating magic mushrooms. Among Mario’s extra powers are creating and walking on clouds, drilling holes or squashing his enemies by transforming into a rolling rock.
5. The design of the levels is as brilliant as in the first part. Checkpoints are now clearly marked by Bowser flags which Mario needs to touch. Some of the levels are however frustratingly difficult. You frequently wish for more checkpoints or more time.

All in all Super Mario Galaxy 2 is fun to play just like Super Mario Galaxy. But it somehow doesn’t have the special touch to it that made the first part a real masterpiece. It is nevertheless one of the best Wii games I have ever played.

What makes BioShock 2 a really good game is the excellent design and the elements of roll-playing and strategy games incorporated into the story:

• The underwater city Rapture is a fascinating scenario. Its inhabitants managed to build this monument of  human ingeniousness but failed to establish an utopian society. As a result the would-be paradise turned into hell on earth. This is very well reflected in the grandeur of the architecture which is now mostly in ruins.
• At the beginning the main character’s abilities (and armament) are very limited. Over time he can however pick up two types of genetic enhancements, Plasmids and Tonics. Plasmids provide active powers like telekinesis or the ability to throw fireballs. Tonics provide passive abilities like camouflage or faster movements. These enhancements are however not easy to procure. A few of them can be found in secret locations but most of them need to be bought with a substance called ADAM. And collecting ADAM proves to be challenging as well. The player frequently needs to decide how to make best use of the limited supply of ADAM.
• Over the course of the game the player encounters a number of minor characters. Some of them are friendly, others are hostile and a few can even switch sides depending on your behaviour. All in all they are very well written and voiced which contributes  to the atmosphere of the game.
• The player frequently has to defend a Little Sister against fiercely attacking Splicers. But thanks to an arsenal of special weapons like trap rivets, mini turrets and proximity mines it is possible to prepare for such a confrontation in advance to get the upper hand in the fight.
• The behaviour of the main character during the game decided the ending of the story.

BioShock 2 doesn’t feature an original game concept but it is really well made. Overall it is definitely worth playing and even tops the first game, BioShock.

Last Tuesday we could finally watch Iron Man 2 in a local cinema. Just like the first part it is full of humour, action and amazing special effects. Robert Downey Jr. delivers another brilliant performance as Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. Tony Stark’s attitude towards his status as a super hero is still refreshingly relaxed and his worst enemy is once again his ego. Even after a healthy dose of self-discovery and the unavoidable fight against a supervillain he remains a big kid which really enjoys flying around in his armoured suit and doesn’t take life very serious. This refreshing attitude is what makes this film really enjoyable.

While Iron Man 2 is not quite as good as the first part it is still very entertaining and definitely worth seeing. According to The Internet Movie Database there will be a third movie as well which I’m looking forward to.

Last Saturday Silke and I went to London with two friends from Germany. This trip was only possible thanks to Andy and Michelle who kindly offered to watch our puppy Vader for the day. The highlight of our visit was clearly watching The Phantom of the Opera life on stage. This musical is still shown at Her Majesty’s Theatre where it has been running continuously since it first opened in 1986.

The show was absolutely brilliant all the way from the first note of the overture to the great finale. I was especially impressed by Gina Beck who played Christine Daaé. She has a truly amazing voice and her rendition of the song The Phantom of the Opera was probably the best I’ve heard since Sarah Brightman’s performance on the original CD recording.

It was a truly unforgettable evening for all of us. And I’m looking forward to the next musical that we will enjoy life on stage.

The basic course of the game hasn’t changed since the first game. You control a character who moves in a three dimensional landscape resembling historic sites. This time the story line takes you to Italy in the late 15th century where you guide an assassin going by the name of Ezio Auditore during his search for the murderers of his father and brothers.

The game retained all the advantages of its prequel:

1. Brilliant graphics, especially the virtual Venice is worth seeing.
2. Cities full of people who socially interact with your character.
3. A fighting system well-balanced between challenge and fairness.
4. A fascinating storyline.

The designers also got rid of the annoying parts:

1. No more investigation phases to unlock main missions.
2. Collecting flags is (mostly) gone.
3. No tedious horse riding through a landscape full of aggressive, respawning soldiers.
4. The interruptions by the plot taking place in the present time are less frequent and less irritating.

New elements make the game even more interesting:

1. The goal of the main missions vary to some degree. Dispatching an enemy is often not good enough. You e.g. need to follow him to a secret meeting without being discovered first.
2. Treasure hunts in dungeons which require expert climbing and careful jumping pay homage to Tomb Raider.
3. Running the Auditore family’s countryside villa introduces an admittedly very simple economic simulation into the game.
4. The ability to buy weapons, armour and other equipment or get extra training for money adds elements of a role-playing game.

All in all Assassin’s Creed II provides hours of fun with just the right level of difficulty accompanied by an entertaining story. I’m already looking forward to the third part of the series.

Law Abiding Citizen tells the story of a man who feels betrayed by the justice system after the murderer of his wife and daughter walks free due to a deal with the district attorney. He takes justice in his own hands and doesn’t only go after the criminals but also after the people who failed to prosecute the culprits.

The movie is a well done thriller. The main character Clyde Shelton is terrifying and likeable at the same time, hero and villain in one person. Gerard Butler‘s performance in this role is excellent. He manages to engage sympathy for a stone-cold killer.

If you like a good thriller with action and an original story you don’t to want miss Law Abiding Citizen.

The game is based on DC Comics‘s Batman comics and not on the recent movies. If you like the dark atmosphere of these comics you will really enjoy this game. Excellent comic-style graphics, brilliant animation and the voice actors from DC animated universe bring the story to life.

Your job as Batman is to regain the control over the Arkham Asylum and stop Joker‘s plan to create an army of Bane-like creatures. Besides Batman’s formidable skills as a fighter you can also use his well known gadgets like batarangs or the grappling gun. But even those won’t help you much against a group of Joker’s henchmen with automatic guns. You need to plan carefuly, attack from the shadows and silently take out the bad guys one by one. Between the fights you have to solve puzzles to gain access to the next area or to find hidden extras.

If you want to know how it feels to be Batman this game is as close as you can get without getting up from your sofa.

District 9 has the usual ingredients: ugly aliens, ray-guns and space ships. But that is where the similarities with a lot of science fiction movies end. A large part of the movie has been shot to look like a documentary which makes the story appear very real. This is emphasized by the all too believable behaviour of the human characters. As the story develops you realise that real monsters often don’t look like monsters from the outside.

District 9 is well worth seeing and uses science fiction to reflect on human behaviour and its consequences.

I like the three novels for a lot of reasons:

• The story is quite novel and very unlike the usual fantasy story taking place in a medieval setting.
• I like the humanistic philosophy developed during the course of the story.
• The world of  Northern Lights where people have dæmons is really fascinating. Philip Pullman invents a whole society based around this situation.
• There is an ample supply of very well written characters. Each of them has a strong background which makes her or his behaviour very believable. And a lot of the characters develop during the events in a way that is in line with the events portrayed by the story.
• The whole story is well planed. Philip Pullman manages the multitude of story lines like a conductor guiding an orchestra. Even an immensely powerful object like the Subtle Knife cannot cut holes in his plot.
• And there is that end! I really hate it because it is so sad. But I also love it because it is so brilliant. You can see the doom in advance and begin to think frenetically how things could turn out allright. But in the end the outcome cannot be changed. I agree with Silke that the end makes it even more worthwile to read these books.

If you so far only saw the movie The Golden Compass and are waiting for the sequels I would highly recommend to read the books instead:

• The studio is not planning to finance further movies based on His Dark Materials as the Golden Compass was not very successful at the box office in the United States.
• The first movie is incomplete as the scenes taken from the final three chapters of the first book were deleted from the movie (although at least one scene is shown in one of the trailers).
• Considering the controversy over these books the story would probably be watered down badly if the sequels would ever be produced. This already happened to some extend in the adaption of the first movie.

So if you want to know what the story is really all about you have some reading ahead of you.