Imran Malek

• By Imran
•  on May, 11 2009
•  in Gaming

Another week, another game down in a weekend Poopsock session, and I will say that FEAR 2 was an enjoyable, albeit stale experience.

I’m not going to go into the details about the first game’s history or the story because the game does a pretty good job of catching you up with the story and moving forward at a brisk pace.

I will, however, throw a few words in about the gameplay. I’m really starting to suspect that I’m getting some serious console shooter fatigue because even though this game had everything I loved about shooters, including great, powerful weapons, glorious gore, and of course the requisite slow motion (which is, still, pretty cool).  I guess ultimately my problem with this game is that it reminds me so much of Monolith’s other game, Condemned 2.

I really enjoyed Condemned, and FEAR to me just seems so similar to Condemned (they use the same engine, after all) that I kept wishing for my character to drop the gun, put up his dukes, and go to town.

I will address one bit of the story, though – the ending. The game ends so abruptly and so nonsensically that I really think they just totally rushed the ending so they could just get the game out on time – that, or they really, really, really want to make a sequel.

The game’s totally worth a rental, but not much more beyond that I’m afraid.

• By Imran
•  on May, 2 2009
•  in General

I’ve been trying a lot of new things with Fitness lately. First, I decided to drop crossfit entirely – the program really rocked me into good shape, but for reasons that I’ll be getting into later, I’ve decided to drop it in favor of the Westside Barbell routine – particularly, Westside Barbell for Skinny Bastards. Why? Well, Crossfit has a lot going for it if you’re using that as your main source of physical exertion – but for me a lot of my conditioning work is being redirected in the form of Martial Arts training – 5 days a week.

I’ve started to train over at Redline Fight Sports here in Cambridge, MA, and so far I’ve been absolutely loving it.

Let me give you an idea of my schedule:

• Monday – Jujitsu
• Tuesday – Ketsugo
• Wednesday – MMA
• Thursday – Russian Sambo
• Friday – Rest/Conditioning
• Saturday – Jujitsu part 2

So far I’ve been getting the best sleep of my life, and the added weight training has been putting me in my place – but for the first time in awhile I’m feeling like I’m working at 100%. It’s always great to get to work and realize that the shape you thought were in is nothing compared to the shape that’s demanded of you.

Oh well, it’s time to put up or get out.