steve kwan user experience designer

Final exam

(November 30th, 2005 - 12:54PM)

I'm at work. I'm also about to do some studying for tonight's final exam while at work. I work hard for the money...so hard for the money.

Canada descends into a state of anarchy

(November 29th, 2005 - 9:44AM)

You know what I miss? The government.

Not that I'm a big fan of career politicians, but it's nice knowing that someone is actually in charge of the nation. For my American readers (I'm actually not sure if I have any), Canada's government was dissolved yesterday through a no-confidence vote. We're going to have an upcoming election in which we'll wind up with about the same configuration we had before, so we're basically wasting our time and money.

I'm a bit torn as to who I'm going to vote for, but I'm leaning heavily towards the NDP. They get a lot of flak these days because people think they would be incapable of managing our country's finances, but as far as I know they've never held a federal majority so any criticism is really just speculation. I like what they stand for and I'm a big believer in unions, so they'll probably get my vote.

Why is everybody so against unions, anyway? Yes, unions do some stupid things sometimes, but they have such a positive impact on people's lives that it's hard for me to look down on them. When you are in the upper-middle class wage range, it's very easy to downplay the importance of unions because they probably don't affect you. However, for many people their union is the only thing preventing their employer from trodding on them and paying them minimum wage. Regardless of your opinion of so-called "unskilled" labour, nobody deserves to be paid minimum wage.

Anyway, vote with your mind and heart, but whatever you do DON'T VOTE CONSERVATIVE. Having Stephen Harper in power is no better than having George W. Bush in power.

What I accomplished today

(November 27th, 2005 - 3:42PM)

Today's activities, in chronological order:

• Drank coffee.
• Watched women play soccer.
• Drank coffee.
• Played Half-Life 2.

Plans for this evening:

• Drink coffee.
• Watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Steve's politically incorrect observation of the day

(November 26th, 2005 - 4:28PM)

It's funny when parents think that their kids "aren't being challenged enough" at school. Little Billy is flunking all his classes, so the conclusion you draw is that the kid is TOO smart? Wow, the power of parental denial.

I'm going to Fitness World before it closes. Seeya.

Something I didn't know

(November 26th, 2005 - 1:38PM)

Ray Liotta was the voice of Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Interesting discovery of the day

(November 24th, 2005 - 11:09AM)

iTunes can play SHOUTcast streams. I don't know the technology behind SHOUTcast, so this might not be a huge technical achievement, but I'm impressed nonetheless.

Downtime. D'oh.

(November 23rd, 2005 - 4:13PM)

My roommate changed the port forwarding on my router, which is why the site was down. That's the consequence of hosting from home. Of course, the upside is that it's cheap, so you can expect to continue getting the same lousy service from stevekwan.com.

Review: The Matrix: Path of Neo

(November 22nd, 2005 - 8:06PM)

Keanu vs agents, except it's not Keanu.

(1 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: You have to admit this is a lousy game, regardless of your Matrix fanboyness.

Almost everything about The Matrix: Path of Neo is bad. And that's really quite a shame, because this game could have been excellent.

• The graphics are just appalling. Not every game can look as good as Half-Life 2, but there's a limit to what we can be expected to tolerate. Take a look at the screenshot above. Granted, that screenshot was taken at 800*600 pixels, which that brings me to my next point.
  
  
• The game crashed when I ran it at 1600*1200 resolution. The game is interspersed with video clips from the movie in between levels. These clips made the game crash. Sometimes I could skip the clips, but sometimes not. I was able to prevent the game from crashing by lowering my resolution to 800*600. This wasn't actually a huge problem, because the game looks awful at any resolution.
  
  
• The storyline jerks wildly around the plot of the three movies. Video clips from the movie are spliced into the game in a bizarre manner that I assume must be for style. In some places, the game deviates from the plotline in the movies. That doesn't really bother me, but it might bother others.
  
  
• Some of the additional content added to the game is ridiculous. The storyline has been expanded to include more of Neo's training and more details on other events in the movie. There's one point in the game where Neo and a girl in an S&M outfit fight off a bunch of human-sized red ants. Stupid scenes like this make the game hard to take seriously.
  
  
• Some dumb bug prevented my custom controls from being saved. Every time I started the game, I had to set my controls.

There's one good thing about this game: the combat is kind of fun.

Review: Call of Duty 2

(November 20th, 2005 - 3:35PM)

Romping through scenic Egypt with a Bren.

(3.5 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: Been there, done that.

This review is going to be brief, partly because I don't feel like writing a lot about Call of Duty 2, and partly because there isn't much to say.

Call of Duty 2 is a graphically improved version of the original. The gameplay itself is almost identical. If you enjoyed the original Call of Duty, you'll definitely enjoy the sequel, but you may find it leaves you disappointed. This game adds almost nothing to the original experience.

Wow, that was quick. I should do this more often.

Video games and a leather jacket

(November 20th, 2005 - 12:39AM)

It wasn't that long ago that it seemed I didn't have enough spare time. Now I'm able to play several hours of video games every night. This could be either because one of my courses finished, because I'm single, or both. I'm enjoying a break from my usually busy schedule, but I don't like feeling lazy.

I'm at a point in my life where I'll need to be making some very difficult decisions regarding my career. That might sound like a fortune cookie, but I don't want to get into details on here because I know that some of my work-related contacts visit the site. Suffice it to say that there are some issues I really need to see addressed, and the results of addressing them could be a major change in both my company and role within it.

I personally hate taking an assertive stance; confrontation makes me uncomfortable. I may not have a choice if I want to make the best of this situation.

Shereen and Michelle took me shopping for a leather jacket today. For optimal style, make sure women pick out your clothes. My fashion sense is pretty good, but for best results all men should be sure to let women dress them.

I haven't gone to work in two days.

(November 16th, 2005 - 10:15PM)

I could really get used to telecommuting.

A long-awaited update?

(November 15th, 2005 - 11:11PM)

I know it's been a while since I've posted a detailed update, but I just haven't been in the mood.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I got rid of my idiot roommate. He was kind enough to leave a sink full of dishes for me as a goodbye present. Aww.

One thing that's become obvious to me is that I play a lot of video games. In addition to finishing the games I've reviewed on this site recently, I also finished Call of Duty 2 and I've been playing The Matrix: Path of Neo. I might write reviews for or or both of these games too. I've been playing a lot of games, but too many? I don't think so.

I'll be working from home tomorrow, as I have a lunch meeting in Burnaby. Seeing as how I work in North Vancouver, it doesn't make sense to commute all the way out there, commute back to Burnaby, commute to North Vancouver again, and return to Burnaby. Wow, this must be sounding boring.

He's gone

(November 14th, 2005 - 11:46PM)

I finally got rid of the idiot roommate! And even better, I got him to paint the bathrooms before he left! How did I do that? Well, I can't tell ALL my secrets.

Update to my life goals

(November 6th, 2005 - 11:09AM)

The mighty have fallen!

Get born
Graduate from BCIT
Get employed as a software engineer
Beat Richard at Minesweeper Flags
Buy a home
Finish a degree
Get married
Have kids
Kick kids out of the house
Retire
Travel the world.

Review: Quake 4

(November 5th, 2005 - 9:04PM)

My legs...I can't feel my legs!

(3 / 5 stars)

One sentence summary: It's like Doom 3, but you can GO OUTSIDE!

Quake 4 has been released, and this surprised me just as much as you.

I saw some information about Quake 4 a month or so ago, and thought to myself, "Well that's interesting. They're making Quake 4." The next thing I knew, it was out. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but there didn't seem to be much fanfare prior to Quake 4's release. Anyway, the game is now available and I've played it through, so here are my opinions.

In Quake 4 you play as Matthew Kane, a space trooper fighting the war against the a race of cyborgs called the Strogg. And in typical first-person shooter style, you are totally mute. Quake 4 is a continuation of Quake 2, where you defeated the Strogg's leader at the end. This marks the first time that the Quake games were actually strung into a series. Quake 1, 2 and 3 had nothing to do with each other. It's nice that Quake 4 actually attempts to continue a previous game.

I was a little bit worried at first because Quake 4 is the first game in the series not made by id Software. id, who have previously produced games like Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, decided to outsource Quake 4 to Raven Software. Since id wasn't developing this game in-house I expected the worst, but luckily Raven pulled off a solid title with Quake 4.

The game looks good. Very good. Right-click on the above screenshot to see a screenshot from my computer. You know what other game looked really good? Doom 3. In fact, Doom 3 and Quake 4 look almost identical. Shown random screenshots from one of the two games, a casual player may not be able to tell the difference. This is obviously because both games use the Doom 3 engine. It looks like Raven didn't change a single line of code when they adapted it for Quake 4. That's not a bad thing, mind you; the Doom 3 engine is a masterpiece. Just don't expect anything new from Quake 4.

The weapons in Quake 4 sound awesome. They've really got a mean kick to them. Unfortunately, they're all pretty boring. You've got your standard pistol, machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher, railgun, BFG, etc. The only difference is that in Quake 4, the BFG isn't called the BFG, it's called the Dark Matter Gun. I guess that means it's the DMG?

In particular, I found the railgun disappointing. The railgun in Quake 2 was just so cool - that was my favorite weapon in the game. You'd zap a guy with it and he'd get nuked into a pile of gore. Seeing as how Quake 4 uses Doom 3 technology, and considering how cool F.E.A.R.'s railgun (the particle weapon) is, I had high hopes for the railgun in Quake 4. I imagined firing a slug at a guy and punching a hole through him. Unfortunately, in reality the railgun was really quite disappointing. All it does is send guys flying. It's really quite boring.

I found that aiming in Quake 4 was difficult. At the beginning of the game you don't even notice, because with shotguns and machine guns accuracy isn't really an issue. When you get the railgun and attempt to snipe enemies from a distance, you'll notice that it's very hard to do pinpoint accuracy shots. Maybe it's not the game and it's just me or my computer, but it seemed that shooting where you want was more difficult than it should be.

Your enemies in this game aren't really that inventive. They're clearly patterned after the enemies in Quake 2, which basically means they're a bunch of cyborg zombies that look like Optimus Prime. It would have been nice if a little variety had been introduced.

The AI in this game was extremely disappointing. Like in Doom 3, the enemies practice the kamikaze rush - that is, they run directly at you like goons in a Van Damme movie. Later in the game you'll encounter some elite soldiers that actually use a bit of strategy, but most of your opponents are pretty brainless. I could forgive this weakness in Doom 3 because the game broke ground in so many other areas, and AI isn't really a necessity in a survival horror game. However, in Quake 4 we've been there and done that already. Considering that you're supposed to be at war in this game and war shooters usually have good AI, there is simply no excuse.

Overall, Quake 4 is a pretty game with decent weapons and decent gameplay. That's it. The game is very, very decent. It's good, but not great. With games like F.E.A.R. being released, there's no excuse for gameplay this shallow. The main reason to play Quake 4 is not because of the quality of the game itself, but because it can be viewed as a reinvention of Doom 3.

A lesson in project management

(November 2nd, 2005 - 11:09PM)

The following is kind of a true story. The events may have been modified to make me look better and more intelligent than I otherwise might.

Project Manager (PM): "Steve, here is data from a new prospect. Please estimate how long it would take to convert it into our new system."

The next day...

Steve: "It will take about 110 hours."

PM: "What! That's way more than I expected. Why do you think it will take so long?"

Steve: "Here is a two page Excel spreadsheet explaining my rationale."

PM: "This doesn't look right. The project shouldn't take more than 35 hours. We've done projects like this in the past and they took 35 hours."

Steve: "Well, I did a full estimate and I think it will take 110 hours."

PM: "I'll talk to the client and see if I can get to the bottom of this."

A conference call follows...

PM: "Well, it sounds like this project will only take 35 hours! I think we can do it."

Current project running time: 120 hours, give or take.

Mission accomplished

(November 2nd, 2005 - 7:56PM)

No, I didn't invade Iraq, but I was able to get rid of a biological terrorist. Kind of.

In my previous post, I discussed a conversation I had with my roommate regarding our newest addition to the house, "Saddam." Saddam moved into our house recently and basically trashed the place. Obviously, his name isn't actually Saddam - that's just an alias to protect him (or in other words, to cover my ass). Why Saddam? Because Osama was taken.

Anyway, I had a conversation with one of my other roommates about how messy Saddam is. We discussed booting him. It turns out that sound travels very well through the vents in my house; when you're downstairs, you can hear the conversations upstairs. So Saddam heard us discussing his eviction and decided to take it upon himself to move out. This was convenient, because then I didn't have to break the news to him. For anybody who says it's a bad idea to talk about people behind their backs, I should point out that sometimes it can avoid unpleasant situations.

Unfortunately, Saddam decided that he didn't have to give a month's notice and could just move out any time. I explained otherwise. "I'm not actually a tenant here. It isn't written anywhere that I have to give a month's notice," he said. I informed him that actually, it is written somewhere: the BC Tenancy Act. After a bit of verbal punching, he decided that maybe just moving out wasn't a good idea. After some stupid scheming, he decided he'd stay for the last month. So now I'm trying to find a replacement.

I'll be quite happy when this guy is out of my house. Unfortunately, now I have a vacant room. If anybody's looking for a place, let me know.