Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023)

(pulled from twitter review https://twitter.com/MetricJester/status/1644726047869657090?s=20) I watched Dungeons & Dragons Honour Among Theives last night, so I would like to talk about it here. Having watched the two linked D&D films from 2000 and 2005, and finding one to be total cheese, and the other to be "feed the nerds", I was not expecting a great movie. (spoilers) What I got was actually a great movie. It has a solid heist movie / buddy group sort of plot, the characters are written more grounded and less pure archetypal, but still has some reference to classic D&D character types, without being outlandish (like 2005's "Rogue" reference every 5 minutes). The menagerie of races you can have in D&D is well represented, and to scale. The tropes they used were used well, my favourites being Flashback, Early MacGuffin, Treasure Room Swap-a-roo (sorry about the plot twist mention), The Big Bad Shuffle, and Final Boss. D&D Honour Among Thieves is an excellent D&D movie, but also a good movie. In other years this would have/should have been a summer blockbuster. Passes Mustard Dijon Quality!

It's been almost 8 years

It's been nearly 8 years and I am finally ready to start up my blog again. Let me just start off again by saying: This is a pass or fail review blog. These items either cut the mustard or they don't. There is no in between.

E3 2015 - Sony Press Conference

This has been a long time coming, and I should be ashamed of myself for not posting this sooner.  I've waited long enough to tell you if the E3 2015 Sony Press Conference passed mustard.  It's always nice when a conference starts on a high, and keeps on giving through the whole thing.

The first game was conceived as a poetic story of friendship and adventure.  At least that's what Shawn Layden tells us.  He's not wrong though, and the gameplay trailer for The Last Guardian looked amazing.  Some of it's age is showing through in some of the animations being used, the walking and moving around and such.  It kind of reminds me of the VERY first Prince of Persia game, where you would stop moving but the character would just keep moving on it's own.  I love me a puzzle platformer, and coming out in 2016 it will probably end up on the shelf.

Herman Hulst of Guerrila Games came out to introduce something brand new.  A game where you are a female hunter and you hunt down giant robotic dinosaurs with a bow and arrow.  It's called Horizon Zero Dawn.  I'm hoping that you can do some upgrades or weapon crafting and so on, but we only get a look at one hunt.  This is definitely a good move for Sony, cause they NEED more female leads.

Up next is the new Hitman game.  I'm not looking forward to this as much as some of my friends are.  The trailer was pretty cool, and the Square/Enix press conference and the PC Gaming Conference gave us a better look at what can be done in the game.  Here we are told that the world will be alive and changing as the game is played, and that the Playstation 4 will get a BETA releaase of the game when you pre-order.

Street fighter 5 is coming, and all this tells us is that Cammie and Birdie will be in it. Oh and you can pre-order on PS4 with a public beta on July 23rd.

Sean Murray from Hello Games gives us a live demo of No Man's Sky.  Starts off with a bit of space combat, then he pulls out, not a little, but a lot.  Like a Galaxy away!  He warps to another star system, an undiscovered solar system, and then lands on a planet and walks around.  I think it's so cool that there isn't just one world, but thousands to explore!  There's no release date yet, but it just looks awesome!

Now this is just the first half hour!  Definitely passed mustard!

E3 2015 - Ubisoft Press Conference

The reason I look forward to this conference every year has to do with  Ubisoft showing their passion for games and gaming on their sleeves.  That and Aisha Taylor is an excellent host, and did a great job this year.  I was wondering if they would do the whole backstage interview thing like last year, which hadn't worked, but could have with practice, and they really didn't.  I liked the walk around and talk to an audience member thing, and really liked that Ubisoft encouraged some costume play.

Now for the games!  The show opened with the words "The EPIC RPG returns" meaning Stick of Truth 2 The Fractured But Whole! Honestly I know nothing about the first game besides what was shown last E3.  It looks like it would be a bunch of fun, but I just don't know.

After Ms. Taylor's short monologue, Yves Guillemot came out to introduce a game I would definitely like to try that contains Knights, Samurai, and Vikings, in glorious sword battles.  It's called For Honor (which I think is misspelled since Ubisoft is Canadian).  There are some really amazing moments in the demo, like when a friend comes and saves the guy we are following.  It's not out yet, but you can go to a website to sign up for a preview. [https://www.ubisoft.com/en-US/game/for-honor/]

The Crew Wild Run looks to be bigger, wilder, faster than the last The Crew.  The trailer showcased monster trucks!  Next along was Trials Fusion Awesome Level Max expansion looks, well, awesome, with a cat riding a fire breathing unicorn in front of a triple rainbow.

The Division is an online open world action RPG that lets you shoot people, hide behind things and talk to your friends while trying to stay alive and loot corpses.  Some of those corpses could be other real people also playing the game.  If I were still interested in theses SOCOM type games I would be totally into this game, but as my life stands right now, meh.

Anno 2205 is a city building, space race game that really tickles my fancy.  Not much has been said about it in this conference, but you can find out more info at [http://anno-game.ubi.com/anno-2205/en-GB/home/index.aspx]

Do you have a smart phone? Then you can play Just Dance 2016 without a camera on your console.  Not bad considering Just Dance Now has been on my phone but unused for ages.  Plus we get to see Aisha Taylor and Jason Derulo on stage.

So when did Rainbow Six turn into SOCOM meets COD?  Now with Rainbow Six: Siege: Terrohunt!  So you get to hunt down terrorist AGAIN!  It now stars Angela Bassett and like I said before if I was still into SOCOM type games I'd probably play this.

Do you remember TrackMania? no? well it's an over the top arcade racing game, that now has a turbo edition!

AC Syndicate gets a big roll out here, and I've been typing for hours so I just don't want to do this game any injustice.  The trailer has been out for a month, and if you haven't seen it yet, you will be surprised by it. Last but not least we get a look at bust-a-druglord!  I mean Ghost Recon Wild Lands.

So my verdict is that this Ubisoft Press Conference Passed Mustard!  Check out the games that are coming out of Ubisoft,

E3 2015 - Electronic Arts Press Conference

I remember a time when Electronic Arts was the only game company I liked.  Nobody else made games like they did.  No one else had the man power, or the know how, or the gumption to make games like Electronic Arts.  Those days of one GIANT studio making literally hundreds of games has disappeared with the millennium, and lately we have been given mediocre games with little heart, with a few exceptions from some of EA's smaller studios.  This year is different though.  It's as if the entire company has decided to care again, and we are getting new and interesting games like Unravel.

The Conference started with Mass Effect Andromeda, I'm not familiar with the franchise, and yet it's been presented as if I should know all about it already.  There's space, planets, shooting, and.... um.... other people?  Honestly I have no idea.

Next along comes the new Need For Speed game.  It looks great, and I think they are bringing back the story mode.  Reminds me more of NFS: Underground, and I really hope it stands up to those games better than Rivals ever did.  The trailer shows off more story elements, more customization, and more fun! Well at least that's the hope.

Star Wars the Old Republic is getting an expansion called Knights of the Fallen Empire, with better storytelling, more like BioWare's storytelling.  Coming out October 2015.  This trailer has twins who Jedi together and drift apart.  Check it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGHW4sn5J-Y]

The guy who introduces us with Unravel looked so nervous!  His hands were shaking so bad when he brought out Yarny!  I think it was awesome to hear about how he pretty well invented Yarny and Unravel two summers before on a trip to the woods with his family.  It really brings it down to a personal level that I feel EA has been missing lately (ahem, SimCity and DRM).

I started laughing when the super Zombie came out and started preening.  I don't think anyone else did though.  Good introduction to PvZ:GW2 which is the abbreviation for Plants Versus Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 I have chose to use.  The Microsoft conference told us that it will be an exclusive to XBox ONE, and this one gives us a first look at actual gameplay, and from the zombie's perspective no less. My wife wants to try this one, but there's no way we'd buy the XBox ONE just for this game.

So I didn't pay much attention to the NHL game, I know I know, a Canadian who doesn't like hockey? What gives? Well honestly I've played almost every one since 1994 and still it doesn't make me smile.  My friends are all WAY better at sports games than me and I can never win.  It's so bad that I won't even play them with other people anymore.  I'll rent one ever once in a while and try out what's new, but I just won't buy them.  NHL, NBA Live, Madden, and FIFA all fall into that same category of "Why bother I won't win".  Got to admit though that NBA Live's Game Face looks good, and I hope it makes it into EA's PGA Pro Tour Golf game.

Star Wars has a new Mobile game, and I don't want to gloss over Galaxy of Heroes, but there really isn't any information to glean from the press conference.  I like building games, and Minions Paradise looks like it will be fun.  Building up a tropical island from scratch and watching minions cavorting around and doing things looks so fun.  I loved Simpsons: Tapped Out from EA, so with all that practice from that game this one should shine.

PELE!!!!!!!! Yes he scores again, with a sit down chat about his life, and how he coined the term "The Beautiful Game" as an expression of Soccer, as opposed to American Football.  I loved that they introduced Pele involvment with the new Fifa game this way.  And I would not mind trying this game at least once.  I wouldn't be able to tell what's different from one to another, not playing sports games much.

We get an introduction to the new Mirror's Edge game here, andit looks beautiful!  Frostbite definitely has a lot going for it, and the colour on white aesthetic is still here. A free roam open world is a great idea for Mirror's Edge, I'd like to go jump around my home town in the same way Faith does in hers.

Oh look Madden... who cares? Fantasy draft? Wide Receivers? Back back? Whatever....

Frostbite Engine! Star Wars Battlefront!  too much to talk about!

Does it pass mustard? Yes it does!  Despite the slight emphasis on sports (which is inevitable it's half their business) and no showing whatsoever from EA Active, I liked it.

E3 2015 - Microsoft Press Conference

And so it came to pass, that a press conference that lived in infamy (for sucking) emboldened itself to present us with epic games, and news, and stuff like that.  Right, so enough of that.  I watched Microsoft's 2015 E3 Press Conference live yesterday on the IGN feed [www.ign.com/e3], and again now while I'm typing this, and a few things struck me about it.  Overall it seemed to be way more about the games and a lot less about the technology behind them.  I'm not going to go too far in depth to all the things, but I do have some thoughts about the big things.

Halo 5 looks good.  Well, actually, the demo looked like a new Halo game, all glowy and bloomy.   Drop-in drop-out co-op is a good feature to highlight and showing off Nathan Fillion in the game makes for a good trailer.  The test is in the playing however, and I'm not likely to play it any time soon.

XBOX ONE Backward compatibility is a smart move for Microsoft.  Pop in a disc, download the XBox ONE version and play, for free, if it's supported.  100 Games now, mostly popular ones and first party.  Good stuff, wish it was that easy on PS4 to PS3 games.

Let's talk about the Elite Controller too.  It reminds me of the crazy nut ball convertible controller for $300 that was released recently, but I can't remember who makes it. Adjustable buttons, paddles, exchangeable parts, and those green switches, whatever they do.  It looks interesting, but I'd like to know a little more about it, like how much it costs.

Tod Howard told us of the ability to use Mods for Fallout 4 from the PC on the Xbox.  Genius move, and should give the XBox Fallout more play time, and would almost make me want to buy an XBox.  Almost.  I like my PC and Playstation too much.

Electronic Arts dropped in and told us about EA Access.  $5 a month to get new titles before other people and 10% off EA games.  I wouldn't sign up for it cause I'm not a fan of sports games.  Cause that's like paying more to play games that aren't done.  Also they told us about Plant Vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2, or as an EA lover would say: PvZ:GW2. Cause there aren't enough abbreviations in the world.

Ford shows off it's new GT and Henry Ford III shows off Forza 6. It does look like a lot of fun, and by now it's the ubiquitous driving game.  If you like the last one you should like this one.  If you want to drive super cars fast and own an XBox ONE this is the game to buy.

We had our first look at Dark Souls 3 here, with a trailer that needs further investigation, but E3 is so busy that I'll just have to watch it again later. I'll just leave a link to it here: [https://youtu.be/7OtAVElUljE]

Ubisoft showed off some games too, like Tom Clancy: The Division and Rainbow Six: Siege.  They do look like they play differently, but we can talk more about that from the Ubisoft Conference.

Gigantic is cool looking, and Free to Play on Windows 10 and XBox.  I'm a sucker for cell shaded games. Now we get into the rapid fire game section, ID@Xbox.  Ashen, an explore and solve puzzles game. Beyond Eyes, explore the world while blind, the trailier kind of reminds me of Unfiinished Swan's trailer, white screen and splashes of colour. Cuphead looks just stunning as a tribute to 1930's cartoons, and it looks to play like Contra.

Rise of the Tomb Raider trailer from Crystal Dynamics looked awesome here!  It started in a cave with a flare, and moved through slogging through snow, where Lara left marks in the snow! Then it went into ice climbing with timed events and finishing with showing of some other exploration options.  I so want to play this and I wasn't even expecting it to show up.

This is the time when you might expect the conference to be over, but no there's tons more!  Rare tugged at my heartstrings by showing off their new disc of old games.  30 full old Rare Games!  I loved playing Banjo Kazooie, and a whole bunch of other Nintendo branded Rare games, and I'd love to try this.  If only I could convince my wife that spending $600 for a console and a disc is worth it.  Rare also talked about a new game they have been working on called Sea of Thieves.  A Pirate game! The trailer was great, and really drove home the piratey feel.  It looks like you can run a tall ship with your friends and go on piratical adventures together.

Fable Legends and Gears of War 4 got trotted out too along with all these other great games, I'm just worried that with all these games in one press conferenece that maybe I missed something.  Or maybe we all missed some things and we'll have to find out what it is from other sources.'

Now we come to the hardware section, which really is more of a "Look what Minecraft can do using HoloLens"  I'd have liked to see more about this, like some of the technical specifications of the holo lens, more of how it works, and I'd really like to try it before buying it.  Wish I was at E3.

Anyway now we come to the nitty gritty of the conference.  Did it pass mustard?  Yes.  I look forward to gaming on Windows 10, and there are a few games that were marketed for it in this conference.

E3 Update

I've watched some of the many livestreams today for the E3 Press Conferences.  I have many notes, and will be reporting on them shortly... please stand by....

E3 2015 - Bethesda's FIRST E3 Press Conference!

So life got a little bit in the way here, but I think I only missed the first 30 minutes of this presentation.  I didn't miss much did I? Doom? Wolfenstein? Whatever the heck Battlecry is (my instinct is that it's Battlefield Heroes)?

Anyway, I saw the trailer of Dishonored 2, which I'm not into, but it looks almost predictable.  Predictably good, but still predictable. I'm not a big fan of stealth kill games.

Elder Scrolls Legends is a smart match, I like strategy card games and Tamriel, so why not?  I used to play Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and I think I'm the only one in my city who owns Eye of Judgement. Also with the success of Hearthstone, as the instant e-sport, maybe Elder Scrolls Legends will be big too.  I just don't think I could call it ESL, sounds too much like English as a Second Language, TES:Legends would be better.

I liked the "Todd Howard Presents Fallout" section at the end.  Fallout 4 will DEFINITELY be an upgrade from the last Fallout games, and as a big surprise it will be a HUGE upgrade from Skyrim's engine, with an even better looking house builder, or rather a town builder, with a tower defense element.  The Build-a-Face with no sliders looks cool, but makes it harder to repeat a face, or share a face.  Also auto-generated babies are something I wish could happen in real life, I'm starting to get impatient to meet our baby (My wife is now 25 weeks pregnant, or "HALFWAY BABY!" as I like to call it). Of course sleeping for 200 years and almost no changes in your neighbourhood besides destruction is CREEPY!  There is no way anyone can befriend a dog that fast, or train it to fetch already.  I think the new Pip Boy is genius, with game tapes, making an excellent vessel for mini-games, and it really is a throw-back to Commander Keen, with the Pong Watch. Heh, good times.  The fact that they made a phone carrier Pip boy in real life to be shipped with special editions of the game is genius as well.  And having a second screen app to go with it, that links up and does what the Pip Boy does in the game is a great addition for some really die-hard fans.  I had some fun with the GTA 5 one but didn't like the Mortal Kombat one.  The weapon crafting will make for a broader experience, and give some of us completionists nightmares.  The whole crafting thing of grabbing something in world that contains or embodies and type of material, like using a microscope for glass and a wrench for steel is a much better way to implement than having only certain items be scraps for crafting with.

Now we get to the one thing we've all been waiting for.....  Fallout Shelter? Well... Yeah! I've been saying that I'd rather be building the vault than scrambling out of them and shooting stuff since Fallout 3 dropped.  And it's out now!! For FREE!!!!

Has Bethesda's First E3 Press Conference passed mustard? Yes, and not just because Pip Boy is a real thing now.

Wayne of Gotham by Tracy Hickman

I can't believe that I missed this book from Tracy Hickman when it came out.  A Batman novel by one of my favourite fantasy novelists!? I couldn't wait to grab this up at my local library.  I'm not going to give a long plot synopsis, but let me tell you that it gives a much broader, and deeper look into the mind and father of Bruce Wayne/Batman.  I like how it refers to Batman, when Bruce Wayne is wearing the cowl, and how it says Bruce Wayne when he doesn't.  And since it's Tracy Hickman, who's been working on his craft for years and years, I knew it would be well written, but even as a trhickman fan, I was surprised at the pure genius of it.  The use of flashbacks to Thomas Wayne's life, and the jumping around the city using a small horizontal rule, and a small font stating the place and time of the next bit of text was a great way to introduce a change of scenery.

So long story short, this passed mustard.  If you like Batman and/or Tracy Hickman take it out of the library.

Forgotten Portals 1: Rise of the Magi (a Soterion Novel)

Forgotten Portals 1: Rise of the Magi (a Soterion Novel)

by Randy Blackwell Jr.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. Having already read 3 or so short stories in the Soterion universe on soterion.com and having had some contact with the author over the past couple of years, what with his table top RPG based on the Soterion world and proposed video game based on the RPG, you could say that I'm a Soterling.

There were some issues with the print itself. Some spelling mistakes, some grammar issues, and typographic errors, and after only 1 month of owning the book, the lamination is starting to peel off the cover. Although these are all minor issues and easily looked over, they did detract from my enjoyment of the story for brief periods. One of the biggest problem I had is trying to pronounce Miyka in my head, especially when it was spelled Mikya once. It always came out as mik-EE-a for me. I can't really come up with anything else wrong about it besides the usual first edition hiccups that you get.

The main characters in this story are the founders of the Order of Magi, Omar Metzger and Myles Callaghan. Omar is the epitome of scientists, inventor of miracles and researcher extraordinaire, who grew up a child prodigy, passing college early and gathering letters after his name like some of us gather flowers. Myles is a illusionist and conman, who grew up in the circus to learn slight of hand and many other skills like throwing knives and lion training and so much more. Both come across as intelligent in their own right, even if their educations were drastically different.

The use of Musterion as a gateway world to Soterion makes some sort of sense, and anyone familiar with C.S. Lewis could climb right on board with that. The requirement to choose a council, and choose right away before you could learn anything about the world, came as a jarring shock to me. I was already committed to finishing the book, but now it got me involved at a deeper level I hadn't thought possible. Up until that point we were learning about a world of tunnels, where the center is full of strange creatures with wondrous qualities and weird features. I didn't count how many different species were introduced in that one chapter, but I could have sworn it was 7 or 8, all with similar names, or similar descriptions. I'm not going to go through them here because, let's be honest here, I'd get them wrong. Now remember how I said I was a Soterling? Well there's about 2 extra peoples in here that I just didn't know about. I liked it, but it may confuse some people. I would suggest that if you want to get even more out of this book, take a note from Omar and write in a journal when you come across new and interesting facts about Musterion and Soterion.

Now I suppose it's time to bring this to a close and so in order to not tell you the ending of the book I wrote this review without reading the end of the book. At this point I would probably stick out my tongue, do a little dance, then run away, but that's childish so, no, I won't do it. I would like to say thank you to Randy Blackwell for inventing this beautiful and rich universe, where we Christian fantasy lovers can revel and frolic, along with the characters and species he's created. I'd say this book definitely passes the mustard.

The Gimp 2

Now if you know me, you know I'm a sucker for a good deal.  I'm talking about low price high quality.  You just can't go wrong with big project FOSS when you want a good deal.  Free to me as in "free nuts" and free to use as in "free speech", and programmed by people who not only know what they are doing, but in many cases have created the standards.  Since my first bit of free candy I've loved free things, and the FSF has treated us all VERY good in the past 2 decades.  The GIMP stands for "The GNU Image Manipulation Program" (it used to be project, but these sorts of things change), and as we all know GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix". Anyway it's time to get this going properly before I start spouting off more about my love for FOSS or,which would be much worse, expounding on the great (if short) history of GNU, and GIMP.

GIMP is an image manipulator, or rather an image editor.  Not just any old image editor, it's a full featured image editor, whose rivals would be from big companies like Adobe and Corel.  I'm not going to compare this to other image editors, you can find lots of those types of reviews all over the place.  I'm also not going to be able to go thru all it's features like I do when I review smaller apps. What I will try to do is explain what sort of things it's good for.  Photo editing and drawing are right there at the top of the list, but I also use it for my pixel art, and digital scrapbooking.  There's filters you can use to do all sorts of things from noise and blur to rendering clouds and applying new art styles.  Layers, history, and colour management are all there too.  I've said this before to other graphic designers (Adobe lovers the lot of them): "There is not a single thing you can with Photoshop that you can't do with GIMP."  to which most of them ask "What about actions?"

Anyway The GIMP 2 passed mustard.

http://www.gimp.org/

Steam (iPhone)

So like everyone else who plays steam games on pc and owns an iPhone I signed the petition to get friend chatting on the iPhone.  Fortunately for all of us Valve decided to give way more than just chat.  You can browse groups, see friend activity, browse the Steam Catalog (a.k.a. Store), your wislist, fill up your cart, checkout and have the game ready for you at home, and use the steam store search.  Oh, yeah and there's steam news, store account info, app settings and a way to log out (either for security or cause you share your iOS device).

I'd like to go through each and every section but I'm not prepared to type 12 paragraphs.  My most used features are Friends, Catalog, Cart, and Search.  Friends works much like your friend list on the desktop Steam (Mac or PC), it lets you see who's online, playing what, and chat with them.  Catalog is essentially store.steampowered.com built for the iPhone.  Cart is your shopping cart, you need to go in here to pay for your purchase that you got from either Search or Catalog.  You can use all the same checkout methods as when you are on your computer, and when you do finally get back to it you can download the game there.

Now I do have to say that it isn't seamless with the desktop app.  Chats do not propagate across, and sometimes when you exit the app, chats will pop up as notifications, and sometimes they just don't.  I'd like to say it's stable, but my copy has crashed just before checkout, and then I had to start over searching for my game again.  Not a big problem, but occasionally annoying.

Passed mustard.

Skyrim Alchemy (free version) for iOS

You can find the app on iTunes store, or by following the link on the app's blog: http://skyrimalchemy.blogspot.ca/

This app lets you try new and different alchemy recipes without wasting your in game ingredients. Now this app has a very simple User Interface and trust me when it's this type of app the simpler the better!  You can select a single effect, then choose two ingredients from the filtered lists accessed by the silver buttons saying "Select Ingredient", and then one more ingredient whose effects match either or both of the first two ingredients.  It will also tell you what effects that potion will have if you were to make it in game.  I find it VERY handy when I'm trying to track down that one perfect potion, or just to avoid negative effects on positive potions by changing ingredients (I don't spend any perks in my alchemy constellation in game, even though I try to max out my alchemy skill).

Also there is a secondary function where you select two effects and it gives you a list of possible ingredient combinations to give you those two effects in a single potion.  Be warned though, cause the second effect list isn't filtered like the ingredient lists are in the primary screen.  I have found a few effects that would be nice to have together, but just won't go together.

I have one issue with it (and it's a minor issue): I want the buttons to be bigger!  It's not that I don't have any dexterity in my fingers, it's just that I like a little wiggle room and padding when the only UI shown is a few buttons.  I'm not saying the screen needs to be filled with them, but 5 to 10 extra pixels bigger each would be nice.

So does it pass mustard? yes
Should you buy the pay version? well if you have some money left over on your app store card it'd be nice to support the author, but there's no added incentive past "Disable ads" to go pay.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Official World Interactive Map (iPhone)

It's crap.  The visuals are cartoony, the free version only shows holds, the extra content (and there's a lot) costs $0.99 for every single unlock!  Are you kidding me?  15 unlocks, all $0.99 or you can buy the whole lot for $9.99, but I already downloaded the app for free, why do I have to pay!?? and the worst part is trying to add a pin to the map.  touch pins, touch add pin, touch map where you want the pin, see a big white box with only a done button on it, click done, oh where's the pin? zoom in all the way, oh, I think it's that little tiny red ball there... STUPID!!!   I'm guessing that the big white box is so you can type something in it, and pins do keep after you turn off the app, but it's just so unwieldy.  there's a button on the start screen that lets you download all the maps at once, taking up 970MB of space on your iPhone and easily that much bandwidth.  I've tried this app without an internet connection, and it works, but only up to a certain level of zoom, because for high zoom levels it has to download a new map from the internet.  Because of this.... let's call it a zoom threshold.... and many other things (like a lack of help or usage instructions) I'm going to say that Prima Guide's Skyrim Official World Interactive Map for iPhone does NOT pass mustard.

Breakdown:

• is it a map? yes
• So is it interactive? yes
• does it work on my iPhone 3GS? yes
• Does it show where you've been in skyrim? You can tell the app what places you've discovered, but only if you've payed for everything, the free one only gives you the different hold cities.
• Does it show dungeon placements etc.? yes if you pay for them
• does it make noise? yes, but you can turn that off
• is there a search funciton? yes but to find anything that's actually hard to find (i.e. not hold cities) you'll need to pay for content.

My final verdict is that if you want an interactive map that already has everything on it, there's a free one at UESP.net based on google's tech:  http://www.uesp.net/maps/srmap/srmap.shtml and it'll work on your iPhone's browser, so it's easily better than this app, even though you need an internet connection to use it.

The Simpsons Tapped Out

Electronic Arts. Okay now that you are done booing at the world's largest video game producer, check out this iPhone game: The Simpsons Tapped Out.  It's a village building game with a Simpsons twist.  It does have some connection issues when you use EA's Origin service to connect to your friends.  When I say some connection issues I mean if you like to play weekends and super late night you won't be able to, cause it won't connect after midnight or during a Saturday.  Works gorgeously every other time though.  I just love it.  All the most memorable landmarks from Springfield USA are in it.  Like the Kwik E Mart and Krusty Burger.  You get a whole bunch of characters too like Homer, Lisa, Ned, Apu, Krusty, and Milhouse (that's as far as I've gotten so far).  I'm currently working on getting enough moneys (in game currency) to buy the School.  There's also magic donuts that can speed any action up quickly.  They cost real money, so don't go spending all the free ones you get right away.

Passed Mustard.

Real Steel

Boxing movie, but with robots.  Check out IMDB or Amazon for plot synopsis.  I loved it, and so did my girlfriend.  So it Passed Mustard without a doubt.

Google AdSense

Now I have used AdSense on my blogs, in fact I've even blogged about getting it and loosing it.  I must say that it's an ingenious way to make money for practically nothing, but for those of us that have be suspended from further use, it can be rather frustrating.  For instance I no longer have AdSense, and so I no longer profit from any ads you may see on this or any of my other blogs.  My only way I'll profit from a reader right now is if they decide to ChipIn and send me some money.  Now while it was active, I had clicked on a couple AdSense ads because I was curious what they were about, and if there was any merit or connection to this blog.  Turns out even one click from yourself can get you banned from AdSense for all time.  So that's it, no more AdSense, no more free money from Google.  I can't even do any of those get rich quick schemes you see all over.

Anyway this is a review site, and I can't just leave you without any reviews.  So, it was actually nice to be able to see not only click traffic, but where the clicks came from and what sort of things were getting clicked on.  It showed all sorts of handy things like balance, $ per click rate, and a list of all enabled websites and blogs.  I believe there's a newer layout now, but the old one was pretty clean and easy to use much like the new blogger experience and all the other Google page re-designs to make everything look more like Google+.

Does not pass mustard, because it penalizes the curious, with no forgiveness.  You may not agree with me on this one, and that's ok, just don't think you can change my mind on it.

Chip in

This is a mini-review of www.chipin.com.

Creates an event to allow others to "Chip in" and help pay for things.  Chip ins are sent directly to your paypal account using the e-mail address you used to sign up for paypal.  It's very handy, works every time, and I've been using it for years already.  If you want to see how chipping in works, just click the orange Chip In button on the right.

Passed Mustard!

NOTE:  The whole chipin.com website was closed on March 7 2013... Don't bother with this any more, the review has been downgraded to "doesn't cut the mustard".

Mr. Bounce (from Pixelate)

I'm talking about the Chrome app Mr. Bounce from Pixelate.  Essentially you have to break bubbles with a little bouncing square.  You can control how high and which way it bounces depending on where you move the dotted line and the paddle.  You can also slow down the ball for a short time.  With such a simple interface, and easy to learn design I say it is one of the more addicting games made for chrome.  I wouldn't say it's as necessary to have as Angry Birds or Google Calendar, but it deserves a hard won spot on my second page.  Passed Mustard.

Also can be found for iPad and iPhone for $0.99 on iTunes, or the "LITE" version for free.  It's a little more complex to play, with a screen region to push for slo-mo, but still passes mustard.

Microsoft OneNote

When I saw the request for this app (here) to be reviewed I was very loathe to do it.  So it'll be a small review.  First we'll start with the screenshots:

 Look at this a loading screen to start.

 Now a login screen hmmm... what's my Windows Live ID

 Oh guess that's wrong, better try again.

 Ten seconds after login

 30 Seconds into login

 OK, so now what?

 Let's try this button and wait 10 seconds.  (it actually took 20)

 Right here we go... I think I'll leave it blank and see what I typed before.

 oh yeah

  So that's what the clock does.

Anyway as you can see I did not enjoy playing with this app.  It's slow on the iPod 2 and seems so totally redundant to me that in the 18 months it's been on my iPod I've used it twice.  Once to say "I want to kiss Christina" and the other time to do this review.  It takes so long from touching the app icon on springboard to actually typing a new note to yourself, that you probably could have found a pen and paper and written the note by hand.  Oh and I forgot to tell you that you have to have a connection to the internet to even use the app so it's totally useless in the grocery store, at 7-11 and on the front porch.  I'd say this app does not pass mustard.  In fact I'd say "DON'T GET MICROSOFT ONENOTE IT'S A WASTE OF TIME!" to everyone I meet.